m 


THE 

AMERICAN 
FRONT 

ERNEST  PEIXOTTO 


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BY  ERNEST  PEIXOTTO 
Each  voliime  illustrated  by  the  author 
THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 
A  REVOLUTIONARY  PILGRIMAGE 
OTTR  HISPANIC  SOUTHWEST 
PACIFIC  SHORES  FROM  PANAMA 
BY  ITALIAN  SEAS 

THROUGH  THE  FRENCH  PROVINCES 
ROMANTIC  CALIFORNIA 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 


!^t: 


'xfj'"' 


^*m!R, 


'--.:^> 


Ruins  in  the  Main  Square,  Fere-en-Tardenois 


THE 
AMERICAN    FRONT 


BY 
ERNEST   PEIXOTTO 

CAPTAIN,   EXGKS.,  U.  S.  A. 


ILLUSTRATIONS  BY  THE  AUTHOR 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
MCMXIX  ^^.' 


Copyright.  1919,  by 
Chables  Scbibner's  Sons 


PubUshed  October,  1919 


TO 

THE  MEMORY  OP 

THE   AMERICANS 

WHOSE  GRAVES  MARK  THE  BATTLE-FIELDS  OF  FRANCE 

THIS    BOOK 

IS  REVERENTLT  INSCRIBED 


PREFACE 

I  HAVE  written  this  book  in  the  form  of  a  personal 
experience,  and  I  hope  the  reader  will  pardon  me 
if  I  have  dwelt  unduly  upon  the  personal  note;  but 
it  seemed  to  me  that  a  simple  eye-witness's  account 
of  the  things  that  I  had  seen — many  of  them  of 
exceptional  historic  interest — would  be  of  value  not 
only  to  those  who  might  write  of  these  events  here- 
after, but  also  to  many  of  the  pilgrims  who  will  visit 
the  battle-fields  of  France  later  on.  This  sort  of 
narrative,  too,  it  seemed  to  me,  was  best  suited  to 
accompany  the  drawings  that  I  made  as  literally 
and  truthfully  as  possible,  from  nature  and  on  the 
spot,  and  that,  I  hope,  will  find  their  place  in  the 
iconography  of  the  Great  War.  Those  reproduced 
in  this  book  are  but  a  fraction  of  the  series  that  I 
made  for  the  War  Department,  being  a  choice  of 
those  best  suited  to  illustrate  the  text. 

When  I  reread  the  pages  that  I  have  written  I 
realize  how  much  I  have  left  untold — left  out  for 

[vii] 


PREFACE 

fear  of  tiring  the  reader,  for  fear  of  clouding  the 
continuity  of  my  narrative.  I  have,  for  example, 
scarcely  mentioned  the  splendid  work  of  the  aviators, 
nor  have  I  described  the  wonders  of  the  S.  O.  S.: 
the  great  depots  at  Is-sur-Tille  and  Gievres,  the 
aviation-fields  at  Issoudun  and  Romorantin,  the 
locomotive-shops  at  Montoir  and  Nevers,  the  great 
hospitals,  the  camouflage  depot  at  Dijon,  and  all 
the  other  vast  American  enterprises  in  France  that 
I  visited  and  pictured  during  the  summer  of  1918. 

I  wish  to  take  this  occasion  also  to  thank  the 
officers  and  men  who  were  so  kind  and  helpful  to 
me:  my  chiefs  at  G.  H.  Q.,  the  officers  upon  whose 
hospitality  I  encroached  on  many  an  occasion,  and 
especially  my  three  comrades  whose  duties  were 
similar  to  my  own.  Captains  Wallace  Morgan, 
Andre  Smith,  and  W.  J.  Duncan,  with  one  or  the 
other  of  whom  I  made  most  of  the  journeys  de- 
scribed in  this  book. 

E.  P. 

Bellevue  (S.  et  O.) 
May  20,  1919. 


[  viii  ] 


CONTENTS 

PAOB 

INTRODUCTORY  NOTE xiii 

I.    FROM    HOBOKEN    TO    GENERAL    HEADQUAR- 
TERS— 

I.  Aboard  the  "Pocahontas" 3 

II.  St.  Nazaire  to  Chaumont 16 

n.    THE  PERIOD  OF  PREPARATION— 

I.  With  the  Rainbow  Division 27 

n.  With  the  Marines  Near  Verdun 43 

ni.  In  German  Alsace  with  the  Thirty-Second   .  56 

m.    CHATEAU-THIERRY  AND  THE  MARNE— 

I.  Belleau  Wood 67 

II.  Along  the  Marne  and  Up  to  Fismes     ...       80 

IV.    THE  TOUL  SECTOR Ill 

V.    TAKING  THE  ST.  MIHIEL  SALIENT— 

I.  Above  Les  Eparges 125 

II.  Into  St.  Mihiel 134 

m.  To  the  Hindenburg  Line 145 

[ix] 


CONTENTS 


PAna 


VI.    THE  GREAT  MEUSE-ARGONNE  OFFENSIVE— 

I.  Before  Montfaucon 157 

II.  The  Road  to  Vahennes 170 

III.  The  Armistice  and  Sedan 179 

Vn.    WITH  THE  ARMY  OF  OCCUPATION— 

I.  Into  Luxembourg 205 

u.  To  THE  Rhine  and  Beyond 216 


[x] 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE    REPRODUCTIONS    OF    CAPTAm    PEIXOTTO's    DRAWINGS  ARE 
MADE    FROM    U.    S.    OFFICIAL    PHOTOGRAPHS    OF    THE    DRAWINGS 

Ruins  in  the  main  square,  Fere-en-Tardenois    ....  Frontispiece 

FACINO  PAGE 

A  transport  with  troops  coming  through  the  lock  at  St.  Nazaire  14 

Ships  unloading  American  war  material  at  St.  Nazaire     ...  18 

Church  in  Baccarat 30 

A  typical  village  of  the  Lorraine  front  in  which  the  American 

troops  were  billeted 34 

Church  in  Badonviller 36 

Barracks  at  battalion  headquarters  on  the  Verdun  front  held  by 

American  troops 46 

An  American  observation-post 52 

The  village  of  Soppe-le-Bas  in  German  Alsace,  used  as  head- 
quarters by  a  regiment  of  American  infantry 60 

American  soldiers  billeted  in  reception-room  of  an  old  Benedic- 
tine monastery  at  Massevaux,  in  the  Toul  sector       ...  62 

A  major's  dugout  in  Belleau  Wood 78 

The  Marne  at  Jaulgonne 84 

Charteves 88 

Chateau-Thierry  from  the  terrace  of  the  old  chateau  ....  90 

The  great  bridge  across  the  Marne  at  ChMeau-Thierry    ...  92 

Remains  of  Vaux 94 

Ruined  Torcy 9Q 

[xi] 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACtHO  PAQB 

Village  square  in  Bouresches 98 

The  church,  Cierges 102 

Reddy  Farm  on  Hill  230 104 

Ruined  church  at  Seringes,  overlooking  the  valley  of  the  Ourcq  106 

The  market-place,  Fere-en-Tardenois 108 

Billets  in  a  cell  of  the  old  monastery  of  Rangeval 120 

No  Man's  Land,  near  Thiaucourt 150 

Great  shell-hole  near  Cierges 176 

The  crossroads,  Buzancy 190 

Dun-sur-Meuse 206 

Valley  of  the  Alzette,  Luxembourg 210 

Men  of  the  32d  Division  in  the  court  of  the  abbey,  Echternach  214 

American  trucks  in  a  side-street,  Montabaur 218 

The  Moselle  at  Cochem 220 

First  Americans  crossing  the  Rhine 226 

MAPS 

VAoa 

Sketch  map  of  the  Chateau-Thierry  region       ......  81 

Sketch  map  of  the  St.  Mihiel  salient 115 

Sketch  map  of  the  Argonne  offensive 159 


[xii] 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE 

In  July,  1914,  we  had  come  up  from  Portugal  to 
our  studio  home  near  Fontainebleau.  On  Sunday, 
the  23d,  the  banks  of  the  Seine  at  Valvins  and 
Samois  were  gay  with  summer  life.  Men  and  women 
in  white  were  fishing  from  punts;  merry  parties 
of  young  people  were  rowing  or  paddling  about; 
on  terraces  along  the  river,  bright  with  flowers  and 
shaded  by  colored  awnings,  happy  little  tea-parties 
assembled,  laughing  and  care-free;  soldiers  from  the 
Forty -Sixth  Infantry  or  the  Seventh  Dragoons,  both 
Fontainebleau  regiments,  were  loitering  about  out 
on  their  Sunday  leave. 

Then,  hke  a  bolt  from  the  blue,  the  great  war- 
cloud  swept  over  Europe,  darkening  France  espe- 
cially with  a  sense  of  impending  calamity. 

By  the  following  Sunday,  the  Order  of  General 
Mobilization  had  been  posted.  The  river  was  de- 
serted; not  a  being  was  to  be  seen.  The  boats  lay 
moored  to  the  banks.  The  gay  awnings  had  dis- 
appeared and   even   the   window-boxes   with    their 

[  xiii  ] 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE 

bright  flowers  had  been  taken  in.  Every  shutter  was 
drawn;  every  house  closed.  Dread  and  grief  were 
already  in  the  air. 

Five  days  later  I  joined  the  local  Communal  Guard 
and,  day  or  night,  patrolled  the  roads,  the  fields, 
the  woods,  the  river  banks,  watching  for  spies,  for 
malefactors,  for  deserters,  with  orders  to  stop  and 
question  every  one.  Those  were  agonizing  days 
that  lengthened  into  weeks,  lightened  at  last  by  the 
Victory  of  the  Marne. 

In  October  I  returned  to  America  and  tried  to 
content  myself  by  working  for  various  oeuvres.  But 
I  was  not  content.  My  age  prevented  me  from 
entering  active  service  or  a  training-camp. 

However,  in  February,  1918,  I  was  offered  a 
captain's  commission  in  the  Engineers  with  duty 
as  one  of  the  eight  artists  ojQScially  attached  to 
the  American  Expeditionary  Forces.  This  I  gladly 
accepted,  and  on  March  4  received  telegraphic 
notification  of  my  appointment. 

Ten  days  later  I  boarded  a  transport  bound  for 
France. 

WTiat  I  saw  there  forms  the  substance  of  this 
book.    In  the  performance  of  my  duty  I  had  excep- 

[xiv] 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE 

tional  opportunities  and  witnessed  portions  of  all  the 
important  offensives  in  which  the  American  Army 
was  engaged.  I  was  one  of  the  first  Americans  to 
enter  St.  Mihiel.  I  saw  the  beginning  of  the  great 
Meuse-Argonne  offensive  and,  with  a  single  com- 
panion, was  the  first  American  oflScer  to  enter  Sedan. 
So  I  feel  that  this  book  should  have  value  as  an 
eye-witness's  account  of  certain  events  that  few 
people  were  permitted  to  see. 


[xvl 


FROM  HOBOKEN  TO  GENERAL 
HEADQUARTERS 


ABOARD  THE      POCAHONTAS  *' 

ONE  of  the  big  docks  of  the  Nord-Deutscher 
Lloyd  in  Hoboken;  a  rainy,  lowery  day 
in  March,  1918.  Two  transports  lay 
moored  at  each  side  of  the  dock,  upon  which  long 
columns  of  khaki-clad  troops,  both  colored  and 
white,  were  drawn  up,  checked  off  by  their  officers 
and  slowly  despatched  up  the  gang-planks  aboard 
the  gray  steamers. 

All  officers  had  been  notified  to  report  on  board 
before  ten  o'clock.  But  the  day  wore  on  until  late 
afternoon  before  the  last  barge-load  of  barrack-bags 
and  the  last  lot  of  bedding-rolls  had  been  stowed 
away.  Then  the  hawsers  were  cast  off  and  we  swung 
out  into  the  gray,  windy  North  River,  fairly  em- 
barked upon  our  great  adventure — the  greatest  ad- 
venture, I  am  sure,  that  any  of  us  aboard,  no  matter 
what  our  past  experiences,  had  ever  set  out  upon. 

[3] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

Our  voyage  was  begun  when  the  submarine 
menace  was  in  an  acute  stage,  and  every  precaution 
was  taken  from  the  very  outset.  No  one  but  the 
sailors  (and  their  naval  collars  were  turned  in)  was 
allowed  on  deck  as  we  dropped  down  the  bay,  but 
through  a  port-hole  I  watched  the  great  buildings 
of  the  city  move  slowly  by  in  the  twilight,  their 
countless  windows  twinkling  with  the  myriad  lights 
of  their  warm,  steam-heated  offices. 

It  was  cold  and  dark  when  we  reached  the  outer 
bay,  but  I  could  feel  other  boats  about  us  though 
they  showed  no  lights.  There  were  strange  flashes 
every  little  while  wigwagging  and  blinking  like  huge 
owl's  eyes,  while  along  the  horizon,  mysterious  flares 
appeared  from  time  to  time,  and  beams  from  search- 
lights lit  great  circles  on  the  low-lying  clouds. 

At  dinner  we  learned  that  we  were  aboard  the 
transport  Pocahontas^  formerly  the  Princess  Irene  of 
the  North  German  Lloyd  fleet.  Only  one  change 
had  been  made  in  the  dining-room,  now  the  officers' 
mess-room.  A  portrait  of  Pocahontas  covered  some 
decoration  too  German  to  be  seen  with  pleasure 
under  the  circumstances.  Though  the  table-silver 
still  bore  the  mark  of  the  well-known  German  com- 

[4] 


ABOARD  THE   "POCAHONTAS" 

pany,  the  men  sitting  about  the  tables  were  totally 
unlike  any  other  transatlantic  crowd.  Several  hun- 
dred army  officers  gave  a  dominant  note  of  khaki 
to  the  white  cabin,  to  which  the  uniforms  of  about 
forty  naval  officers  added  a  darker  note.  The  two 
colors  met  at  the  commander's  table  in  the  centre 
of  the  room  where  the  six  executive  officers  of  the 
ship  sat  together.  The  meal  was  served  very  sim- 
ply by  a  few  mess-boys  aided  by  some  green  (in 
more  senses  than  one)  volunteer  negro  "strikers." 

Our  first  day  out  was  fine  and  bright  with  a  brisk 
northwest  wind  blowing,  and  the  morning  sun 
showed  us  that  we  were  convoyed  by  a  big  cruiser 
and  accompanied  by  several  other  ships,  two  of 
which  were  brilliantly  camouflaged  with  the  "dazzle 
system."  Our  own  ship  presented  a  busy  scene. 
The  main -decks  were  crowded  with  men  in  khaki 
and  the  promenade-deck  with  officers.  A  guard  of 
seventy  men  was  mounted  at  eight  o'clock.  Gun 
crews  were  polishing  and  training  the  six -inch  guns 
fore  and  aft  or  were  at  practice  loading  a  dummy 
gun  on  the  forward-deck. 

Though  we  had  more  than  three  thousand  men 
aboard,  there  turned  out  to  be  only  one  senior  army 

[5] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

officer  on  the  ship,  a  major,  and  of  the  five  captains 
two  (my  friend  Wallace  Morgan  and  myself)  had 
been  commissioned  but  a  fortnight  before  and  had 
had  no  military  experience  whatever. 

The  inevitable  happened.  Captain  Morgan  was 
made  officer  of  the  day  the  very  first  day  out,  and 
the  same  duty  devolved  upon  me  a  day  or  two  later 
— ^no  light  task  for  a  novice,  as  there  were  more  than 
forty  sentries  to  be  posted,  the  prisoners  to  be 
guarded,  and  no  end  of  regulations  to  be  enforced, 
regulations  upon  which  the  very  lives  of  all  those 
on  board  depended. 

After  luncheon  a  meeting  of  all  officers  was  called, 
and  the  executive  officer  of  the  ship  explained  the 
*' abandon-ship"  drill,  and  an  hour  later  this  was 
put  into  practice  for  the  first  time.  At  the  sound- 
ing of  a  particular  bugle-call  and  the  ringing  of  all 
the  ship's  gongs,  every  man  aboard  was  immediately 
to  leave  whatever  duty  he  might  be  performing  and 
take  his  appointed  place  by  one  of  the  life-boats  or 
rafts.  I  found  myself  in  command  of  collapsible 
boat  No.  13  next  to  the  ship's  bridge.  One  other 
officer  was  with  me — an  alert  lieutenant,  an  orni- 
thologist (the  army  is  made  of  strange  birds)  who  had 

[G] 


ABOARD  THE   "POCAHONTAS" 

collected  rare  specimens  in  East  Africa  for  the  Smith- 
sonian. We  had  three  sailors  and  twelve  soldiers 
with  us,  the  latter  mostly  big,  raw-boned  fellows 
from  the  Kentucky  mountains  who  had  never  seen 
the  sea.  The  ''abandon -ship"  drill  was  repeated 
daily,  and  later,  when  in  the  danger  zone,  twice  a 
day,  at  most  unexpected  hours,  until,  by  dint  of 
practice,  it  worked  very  smoothly  and  with  sur- 
prising rapidity. 

We  dined  that  first  night  at  five  o'clock,  and  after 
dinner  all  lights  were  put  out  and  we  sat  in  the 
dark  saloon  listening  to  the  victrola,  the  only  things 
visible  being  the  wrist-watches  of  the  men  and  the 
faint  luminosity  of  the  port-holes.  Every  night 
thereafter  we  groped  about  the  ship  in  total  dark- 
ness, a  few  carefully  screened  blue  bulbs  placed  near 
the  floor  in  the  corridors  being  the  only  lights  per- 
mitted. Yet  at  a  meeting  of  officers  held  next  day 
we  were  further  cautioned  against  showing  lights 
even  for  an  instant.  No  smoking  was  permitted  on 
deck  after  dark;  all  flash-lights  were  delivered  up 
to  the  adjutant  until  the  end  of  the  voyage.  But 
the  following  morning  the  convoying  cruiser  sig- 
nalled that  she  had  seen  lights  in  one  of  the  forward 

[7] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

holds,  and  a  further  search  of  the  men's  quarters 
was  made.  Other  strict  orders  were  rigidly  enforced. 
Nothing  was  to  be  thrown  overboard,  not  even  a 
burnt  cigarette  or  a  scrap  of  paper,  for  by  such  bits 
of  evidence  a  submarine  could  easily  trail  a  ship. 

My  turn  as  oflScer  of  the  day  came  on  the  morrow 
and  it  became  my  duty  to  enforce  these  rules. 

At  eight-fifteen  a  guard  of  one  hundred  and 
thirty -five  men  was  mounted.  At  ten  o'clock  I 
accompanied  the  major  commanding  troops,  the 
ship's  doctor,  the  chief  police  officer,  and  an  officer 
of  the  guard  on  a  complete  inspection  of  the  ship. 
All  the  holds  were  visited;  the  dark  corners  of  every 
bunk  were  carefully  scrutinized  with  the  aid  of  a 
flash-light,  the  doctor  even  peering  under  the  berths 
in  his  search  for  bits  of  food  or  sputum.  The  menace 
of  epidemics  is  ever  present  on  such  a  voyage  and 
absolute  cleanliness  was  exacted. 

Despite  its  thoroughness,  the  inspection  was  rapid 
and  businesslike,  our  spry  major  leading  us  briskly 
up  and  down  the  forward  ladders,  through  the  iron 
bulkhead  doors,  and  down  the  main  hatches  into 
the  big  holds  amidships;  out  through  the  mess- 
halls  and  finally  into  the  dark  holds  aft  where  the 

[8] 


ABOARD  THE  "POCAHONTAS" 

colored  troops  were  quartered.  In  the  afternoon 
I  made  two  inspections  of  all  the  forty-odd  sentry- 
posts,  visited  the  prisoners,  and  kept  a  watch  gen- 
erally for  any  evidence  of  gambling  or  drinking. 

During  the  night  I  made  three  more  rounds  and 
these  were  a  strange  experience.  Forward,  in  the 
fo'castle,  I  found  the  crew  sleeping  in  hammocks 
suspended  from  the  deck  above,  rolled  like  cocoons 
in  their  blankets.  In  the  holds  the  soldiers'  bunks, 
in  double  tiers,  were  placed  as  close  together  as  pos- 
sible, leaving  just  space  enough  between  for  a  man 
to  pass.  From  them,  as  I  passed  in  the  darkness, 
an  arm,  a  leg,  a  foot,  or  a  hand  would  protrude,  inert, 
and  in  them  I  caught  glimpses,  in  the  ghostly  blue 
light,  of  pale  faces  turned  up,  with  eyes  closed  in 
a  death-like  sleep. 

I  questioned  the  guards  at  the  hatches,  at  the 
water-butts,  and  those  that  watched  the  big  stacks 
of  life-belts;  I  prodded  a  negro  sentry  whom  sleep 
had  overcome.  I  skidded  across  the  main-deck  with 
the  rain  falling  in  torrents  and  in  the  darkness  could 
make  out  the  submarine  watches  in  their  boxes  by 
the  rail,  anxious,  alert,  and  the  great,  rolling  dark 
billows  beyond. 

[9] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

I  admit  the  dismay  I  felt — an  artist  suddenly 
turned  soldier,  in  a  uniform  scarcely  three  weeks 
old — at  being  thus  suddenly  thrown  into  a  position 
of  such  responsibility,  giving  and  carrying  out  orders, 
trying  to  conceal  my  real  feelings,  "throwing  out 
my  chest"  as  I  was  advised  to  do,  and  striving  to 
"look  the  part"  to  the  grizzled  old  sergeants.  I 
made  my  last  round  just  before  dawn  and  thank- 
fully turned  over  the  guard  at  eight-fifteen,  taking 
off  my  web-belt  and  "gat"  for  the  first  time  in 
twenty -four  hours. 

The  high  sea  was  now  playing  havoc  with  the  men 
and  the  decks  presented  a  sorry  spectacle.  At  our 
mess  the  good  sailors  were  chaffing  their  less  for- 
tunate neighbors  with  such  grim  jokes  as  this: 
"Don't  worry;  you  won't  be  sick  coming  back; 
you'll  be  in  a  wooden  kimono."  And  then  to  add 
to  our  comfort  we  were  all  ordered  to  put  on  our 
hfe-belts  and  keep  them  on,  day  and  night,  for  the 
remainder  of  the  voyage.  They  were  of  a  new  type, 
quilted  and  filled  with  kapok,  with  big  collars  that 
stood  high  around  the  neck,  so  that,  arrayed  in  them, 
the  officers  looked  like  stout  Sir  Walter  Raleighs  in 
blue  corselets  with  khaki  sleeves. 

[10] 


ABOARD  THE   "POCAHONTAS'' 

On  the  ninth  day  out  the  weather  changed  for 
the  better  as  we  entered  the  danger  zone.  Early  on 
the  tenth  morning,  just  as  I  came  on  deck,  a  cahn 
clear  sunrise  revealed  a  strange  object  on  the  horizon 
that  I  at  first  mistook  for  some  fishing-smacks. 
As  it  rapidly  approached,  however,  I  realized 
that  it  was  the  first  of  the  destroyers  that  were  com- 
ing to  meet  us  and  convoy  us  into  port.  Then  a 
second  appeared  over  our  starboard  bow  and  then  an- 
other until  a  dozen  of  them  surrounded  us  in  a  wide 
circle,  brilliantly  camouflaged  hke  wasps,  queerly 
striped  with  black  and  white,  with  spots  between 
of  yellow,  gray -blue,  and  water-green.  Like  wasps 
too  they  darted  about  us,  zigzagging  across  our 
bows,  dropping  astern,  watchful,  then,  with  a  burst 
of  speed,  forging  up  ahead  again. 

At  eight  o'clock  that  morning  I  went  on  duty  a 
second  time  as  oflficer  of  the  day.  Toward  midday 
the  cruiser  that  had  brought  us  over  dropped  astern, 
swung  about  and  headed  for  home  alone.  Other- 
wise the  day  passed  uneventfully.  The  sunset  was 
beautiful  and  the  moon  rose  bright  and  clear.  *'A 
good  night  for  Fritz,"  as  one  of  the  ship's  oflBcers 
put  it.     Every  one  was  ordered  out  of  the  lowest 

[11] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

holds  that  night  as,  in  case  of  disaster,  it  would  be 
impossible  to  empty  them  quickly  enough.  So,  as 
I  went  about  the  decks,  in  all  the  protected  angles, 
I  found  soldiers  sleeping,  wrapped  tight  in  their 
blankets,  but  shivering,  nevertheless,  for  the  head 
wind  was  bitter  cold. 

With  the  two  oflficers  of  the  guard,  I  was  on  deck 
all  night.  There  was  a  tense  feeling  on  the  ship. 
The  submarine  guards  and  the  watchers  in  the 
crow's-nests  had  been  doubled.  The  officers  on  the 
bridge  and  the  men  at  the  guns  stood  with  the  tele- 
phone-receivers fastened  to  their  ears.  At  four- 
thirty,  in  the  darkness,  reveille  sounded  and  we 
went  about  rousing  the  sleeping  figures  on  the  decks. 
The  next  hour  was  the  one  of  greatest  danger — the 
hour  of  dawn.  Nothing  untoward  happened,  how- 
ever, so  we  continued  our  zigzags,  carefully  guarded 
by  the  watchful  destroyers. 

That  afternoon  the  convoy  split.  We  headed 
alone  toward  the  northeast,  while  the  other  ships 
dropped  rapidly  off  toward  the  south,  toward  Bor- 
deaux, as  we  afterward  learned.  Three  of  the  de- 
stroyers accompanied  us  as  our  escort,  and  toward 
sunset  we  slowed  down  and  for  two  hours  zig- 
zagged, waiting. 

[12] 


ABOARD   THE   "POCAHONTAS" 

The  moon  came  up  again  clear  and  almost  full, 
"like  a  big  plate  in  the  sky,"  as  some  one  disdain- 
fully remarked,  and  a  better  night  to  "get  a  tin  fish 
in  you"  could  not  well  be  imagined.  For  a  light 
breeze  broke  the  surface  of  the  sea  into  small  choppy 
waves  whose  shadows  were  just  about  the  size  of  a 
submarine,  so  that,  had  a  U-boat  appeared  among 
them,  the  most  careful  watching  would  probably 
not  have  detected  it.  Just  after  nightfall,  however, 
we  started  off  at  top  speed  for  port,  making  a  dash 
for  it,  and  dawn  showed  a  faint  streak  on  the  horizon 
which  rapidly  developed  into  the  bare  rocky  cliffs 
of  Belle-Ile-en-Mer,  well-known  as  the  summer 
home  of  Sarah  Bernhardt.  We  now  knew  for  the 
first  time  that  we  were  to  land  at  St.  Nazaire. 

Two  of  our  destroyers  left  us  and  were  replaced 
by  an  aeroplane  that  hovered  vigilant  overhead, 
while  the  single  remaining  destroyer  piloted  us  up 
the  channel. 

Now,  with  my  glasses,  I  could  make  out  along 
the  shore  villages  and  church  spires,  and  then  in- 
dividual houses  with  buff  walls  and  blue-slate  roofs 
standing  among  pines  and  evergreens — the  homes 
of  France,  so  dear  to  my  heart,  the  homes  of  the 
people  for  which  all  our  hearts  ached.    Then  I  could 

[13] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

begin  to  see  figures  here  and  there.  And  then  at 
one  spot,  where  a  wide  green  lawn  sloped  from  a 
comfortable  dwelling  to  a  white  gate  by  the  sea,  a 
little  girl  came  running  down  across  the  grass  and 
out  through  the  gate  to  the  shore,  waving  as  she 
came  a  bright  American  flag.  And  that  tiny  speck 
upon  the  shore  brought  a  lump  into  my  throat  and 
moistened  the  eyes  of  the  men  about  me.  Then  I 
saw  other  people  waving  welcoming  hands. 

We  took  a  pilot  aboard  and  entered  a  lock  with 
the  big  Mongolia  ahead  of  us  and  the  Kroonland 
just  passing  out — both  camouflaged  with  "low- 
visibility"  colors,  toned  like  Monet's  pictures  with 
spots  of  pink  and  green. 

St.  Nazaire  was  not  yet  bored  with  the  arrival 
of  American  transports.  Far  from  it.  At  one  side 
of  the  lock  a  crowd  of  ragged  urchins  scrambled 
for  the  coppers  that  the  soldiers  threw  them.  At 
the  other  side  a  dense  crowd  stood  silent,  watching 
our  packed  decks.  Women  and  children  predom- 
inated, many  of  them  in  deep  mourning.  There 
were  a  few  French  officers:  a  captain  home  on  per- 
mission, tenderly  holding  his  daughter  as  she  sat 
upon  a  wall;   a  naval  officer  standing  on  a  balcony 

[14] 


7i 


1 


ABOARD  THE   "POCAHONTAS" 

beside  his  tired-looking  wife.  Behind  this  crowd, 
in  motors,  sat  some  stalwart  American  officers, 
bronzed  and  fit. 

The  port  clock  stood  at  six  as  we  slowly  moved 
into  the  inner  basins,  crowded  with  shipping,  and 
tied  up  at  the  old  wharf  of  the  Compagnie  Generale 
Transatlantique. 


[13] 


n 

ST.   NAZAIRE  TO  CHAUMONT 

REVEILLE  sounded  again  next  morning  at 
four-thirty,  and  promptly  at  seven  o'clock 
'  the  troops  went  down  the  gangways,  formed 
upon  the  dock,  and  by  eight  had  marched  quietly 
away,  leaving  only  about  forty  casual  officers  on  the 
ship.  There  we  were  to  remain  until  our  orders 
came,  our  major,  however,  permitting  us  to  go  ashore 
for  a  while  later  in  the  morning. 

So  Captain  Morgan  and  I  took  a  walk  through 
the  town — a  rather  stupid  place  as  French  towns 
go — and  out  by  the  sea  to  the  public  garden.  Here 
we  sat  for  a  while  in  the  sunshine — the  thin  weak 
sun  of  late  March.  There  was  still  a  distinct  chill 
in  the  air,  even  on  this  favored  south  coast  of  Brit- 
tany. But  the  trees  were  beginning  to  bud  and 
beds  of  daisies,  tulips,  and  primroses  spread  their 

[16] 


ST.   NAZAIRE  TO  CHAUMONT 

bright  colors  in  the  grass.  The  birds  were  nesting; 
cats  were  prowling  and  searching  their  mates  around 
the  greenhouses,  and  nature  was  just  waking  after 
her  long  winter's  sleep. 

It  was  only  when  we  listened  that  the  distant 
rumble  of  thundering  lorries  and  the  spluttering  of 
side-cars  and  motorcycles  told  us  that  the  war  was 
real,  as  they  rolled  along  the  roads  behind  us,  hurry- 
ing troops,  supplies,  and  messages  to  the  canton- 
ments back  on  the  hills. 

We  were  forced  to  remain  in  St.  Nazaire  two  days 
longer  and,  chained  to  the  ship  as  we  were,  saw  little 
of  the  town  or  its  activities.  Finally  our  orders 
came.  All  the  officers  were  directed  to  proceed  at 
once  to  the  casual  camp  at  Blois  for  assignment  to 
duty  except  three  of  us  who  were  to  go  to  the  En- 
gineer Headquarters  at  Angers.  We  made  the  short 
journey  on  a  dull  gray  day,  and  it  was  a  dull  gray 
country  through  which  we  passed. 

Upon  our  arrival  we  reported  to  the  Caserne  des 
Jardins,  a  spacious  barracks  situated  on  high  ground 
at  the  outer  edge  of  the  town.  The  court  was  filled 
with  soldiers  looking  very  businesslike  in  trench 
helmets   and   going   through   their   gas-mask   drill, 

[17] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

some  of  them  representing  the  waves  of  gas  and 
trying  to  reach  the  others  before  they  could  properly 
adjust  their  masks. 

Colonel  Black,  who  was  commanding  the  drill  in 
person,  greeted  us  pleasantly,  saying,  however,  that 
he  was  sorry  that  he  could  not  "keep  us  a  few  days,'* 
but  that  our  orders  had  already  come.  At  the  ad- 
jutant's we  got  these  orders  directing  us  to  proceed 
at  once  to  General  Headquarters  at  Tours. 

There  was  no  train  until  nightfall,  and  as  Pari- 
sians were  flocking  to  Touraine  in  great  numbers 
to  escape  the  air-raids  and  the  long-range  guns,  and 
the  hotels  were  overfull,  we  were  advised  to  wait 
for  the  morning  train.  Angers  too  was  overflowing 
with  refugees.  I  talked  to  a  number  of  them,  most 
of  whom  seemed  greatly  relieved  to  be  safely  out 
of  the  danger  zone.  But,  in  the  court  of  the  famous 
old  feudal  castle,  I  met  an  elderly  gentleman  and 
his  charming  daughter  who  treated  the  subject  more 
lightly.  He  told  us  indeed  of  the  latest  raids,  and 
of  the  bombing  of  St.  Gervais,  but  he  added:  **I 
thought  it  was  time  to  take  my  daughter  away. 
Whenever  she  heard  an  alerter  she  would  go  to  her 
mirror   to   arrange  her  hair  instead   of  descending 

[18] 


Ships  Unloading  American  War  Material  at  St.  Nazaire 
The  work  on  the  dock  is  being  done  by  German  prisoners  under  guard 


ST.   NAZAIRE  TO  CHAUMONT 

to  the  cellar  where  she  belonged."  And  her  saucy 
eyes  and  uptilted  nose  corroborated  his  story. 

We  left  next  morning  for  Tours,  reporting  there 
at  the  Hotel  Metropole,  which  was  then  being  used 
as  General  Headquarters.  Here  we  were  at  once 
told  that  our  orders  should  have  read  not  to  General 
Headquarters  of  the  Service  of  Supply  at  Tours  but 
direct  to  General  Headquarters  at  Chaumont,  and 
that  we  should  proceed  immediately  by  the  night 
train. 

Indeed,  this  was  good  news  and  I  was  delighted, 
for  the  one  thing  I  had  dreaded  most  was  a  period 
of  waiting  in  some  camp  or  city  far  from  the  front. 

I  found  in  the  Adjutant-General  at  Tours  an  old 
friend,  who  gave  us  a  letter  to  the  R.  T.  O.,  asking 
him  to  take  good  care  of  us.  We  dined  early  with 
another  friend,  a  Frenchman  born  in  Touraine  but 
now  a  lieutenant  in  the  American  army,  and  at  eight 
o'clock  boarded  our  train — a  special  from  Tours 
direct  to  Chaumont,  reserved  exclusively  for  the  use 
of  American  officers  and  soldiers.  We  found  a  com- 
partment kept  for  us  in  charge  of  a  colored  sergeant 
— a  Pullman  porter  before  the  war — who  tried  to 
make  us  feel  "as  much  like  de  ole  Pullman  days  as 

[19] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

pos'ble."  All  he  could  do,  however,  was  to  spread 
out  some  O.  D.  blankets  on  the  couchettes^  tuck  them 
in,  and  leave  us.  Early  in  the  morning  we  passed 
Dijon ;  saw  Langres,  perched  on  its  steep  hill,  a  little 
later;  and,  toward  noon,  reached  our  destination. 

Thus  I  had  completed  the  trip  from  Hoboken  to 
General  Headquarters  in  seventeen  days — a  pretty 
good  record  in  the  army,  I  thought. 

It  was  the  1st  of  April  and  Easter  Sunday,  and 
the  streets  were  filled  with  people  coming  from 
church,  a  large  proportion  of  the  women  in  black, 
and  practically  all  the  men  in  horizon -blue  or  khaki. 
Chaumont  {chauve  mont — bare  hill),  perched  on  an 
eminence,  is  a  gray  old  town  with  stone-paved  streets 
and  some  fine  bits  of  architecture  among  its  venerable 
houses.  But,  scarcely  noticing  the  town,  we  walked 
quickly  out  through  the  crooked  Rue  de  Bruxereuilles 
to  a  modest  public  garden  beyond  which  lies  an 
irregular-shaped  open  square.  Here  the  rattle  of 
a  sentry's  gun  as  he  presented  arms  drew  our  at- 
tention to  a  large  house  whose  high-pitched  blue- 
slate  roofs  rose  prominently  behind  a  stone  wall — 
the  residence  at  that  time  of  the  American  Com- 
mander-in-Chief. 

Beyond  it  a  broad  avenue,  shaded  by  a  quad- 

[20] 


ST.   NAZAIRE  TO  CHAUMONT 

ruple  row  of  trees,  led  off  to  the  edge  of  the  town. 
To  the  left,  some  little  distance  away,  stood  a  bar- 
racks, a  typical  specimen  of  such  buildings  in  France. 
A  spacious  rectangular  court  preceded  it,  shut  off 
from  the  road  by  a  plain  iron  grill,  above  whose 
gates  the  French  and  American  flags  flew  side  by 
side.  This  court  was  surrounded  by  stone  barracks 
buildings,  three  stories  high,  devoid  of  all  architec- 
tural embellishment,  with  long  rows  of  evenly  spaced 
windows  surmounted  by  red  mansard  roofs.  These 
simple  buildings  were  the  General  Headquarters  of 
the  American  Expeditionary  Forces. 

Their  interiors  were  equally  plain  and  businesslike. 
Corridors  with  whitewashed  walls,  red-tiled  floors,  and 
wooden  stairways  led  from  one  bare  room  to  an- 
other, and  these  bare  rooms  were  furnished  in  the 
simplest  manner  with  deal  tables,  a  few  straw-bot- 
tomed chairs,  a  good  desk  or  two,  and  a  red-hot  iron 
stove.  Great  maps,  carefully  marked  and  pasted  to- 
gether, covered  the  walls.  In  outer  offices  sergeants, 
field-clerks,  and  junior  officers  attended  to  routine 
work;  in  inner  rooms  majors,  colonels,  and  generals 
directed  the  pohcy  of  the  A.  E.  F.  and  decided  and 
put  through  matters  of  importance. 

Upon  my  first  visit,  I  entered  the  centre  door  of 

[21] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

the  main  building,  climbed  one  flight  of  stairs,  and 
turned  down  a  corridor  toward  the  oflSce  I  was  seek- 
ing, when,  as  I  passed  a  door  like  all  the  others,  my 
heart  jumped  as  I  read,  printed  upon  it  in  black 
on  a  plain  square  of  white  paper: 

GENERAL   PERSHING 

I  was  in  and  out  of  headquarters  a  number  of 
times  within  the  next  few  days.  An  official  artist 
was  a  strange  bird  to  classify  in  the  army  but,  after 
some  deliberation,  it  was  finally  decided  to  attach 
us  to  G  2-D,  one  of  the  branches  of  the  Intelligence, 
and  we  were  asked  to  suggest  under  what  conditions 
we  thought  we  could  best  accomplish  our  work. 

It  was  further  decided  that  we  should  take  station 
in  Neufchateau,  a  town  to  the  north  of  Chaumont 
about  an  hour's  ride  by  motor,  hence  that  much 
nearer  the  front. 

Neufchateau  is  well-known  to  most  officers  who 
did  field  service  in  the  A.  E.  F.,  for  nearly  every 
one  passed  through  it  on  his  way  to  or  from  the 
American  front.  When  first  we  went  there,  it  was 
Headquarters  of  the  First  Army  Corps.     Later  the 

[22  ] 


ST.   NAZAIRE  TO  CHAUMONT 

First  Army  was  organized  in  it,  and  finally  it  be- 
came Advance  Headquarters  of  the  S.  O.  S.  Hence 
it  was  always  crowded  with  officers,  who  gathered 
toward  evening  in  the  Club  Lafayette  for  dinner 
and  a  smoke  afterward  in  the  cafe.  So,  from  Neuf- 
chateau  as  our  base,  we  prepared  to  set  out  for  the 
various  sectors  in  which  our  troops  were  gathered. 


[23] 


I 


II 

THE  PERIOD   OF  PREPARATION 


I 

WITH  THE  RAINBOW  DIVISION 

MY  first  trips  to  the  American  front  were 
made  in  April  and  May,  1918.  The  re- 
doubted German  spring  offensive  had  been 
launched  and  was  pitilessly  biting  its  way  into  the 
Allied  lines.  But,  with  the  single  exception  of  the 
First  that  was  up  near  Cantigny,  no  American  divi- 
sions were  as  yet  engaged  in  action.  Most  of  them 
were  still  in  training  in  back  areas  or  were  holding 
certain  quiet  sectors  while  they  learned  the  intrica- 
cies of  trench  warfare,  and  released  veteran  French 
divisions  for  combat. 

The  Second  Division,  the  Marines,  were  in  the 
trenches  east  of  Verdun;  the  Twenty-Sixth  was  in 
the  Toul  sector;  the  Forty-Second  in  the  Vosges, 
and  toward  the  middle  of  May  the  Thirty-Second 
moved  into  Alsace. 

It  was  now  my  purpose  to  visit  each  of  these  sec- 

[27] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

tors.  We  official  artists,  as  we  were  called,  had 
meanwhile  been  given  our  papers,  which  allowed  us 
the  greatest  freedom  of  action.  They  were  signed 
by  the  chief  of  our  section  at  G.  H.  Q.,  and  their 
second  and  third  paragraphs  read: 

"You  are  authorized  to  make  sketches  and  paint- 
ings anywhere  within  the  Zone  of  the  American  Army 
in  accordance  with  instructions  already  given  you. 

"It  is  the  wish  of  the  Commander-in-Chief  that 
all  commanding  officers  extend  to  you  all  possible 
assistance  in  the  carrying  out  of  your  orders." 

As  only  three  of  us  had  as  yet  arrived,  our  de- 
cisions were  easily  made,  and  we  chose,  for  our  first 
experience,  the  area  occupied  by  the  Forty-Second, 
the  Rainbow  Division,  composed,  as  every  one 
knows,  of  National  Guard  elements  from  many 
different  States,  whence  its  name. 

So,  on  the  20th  of  April,  we  left  Chaumont, 
heading  direct  for  Nancy,  scarcely  noting  anything 
on  the  way,  so  eager  were  we  to  get  up  to  the  front. 
But,  at  the  top  of  the  hill  beyond  Pont  St.  Vincent, 
we  did  pause  to  enjoy  the  view  of  the  fair  capital  of 
Lorraine  lying  spread  out  beneath  us,  with  its 
crowded  red  roofs,  its  towers,  spires,  and  high  church 

[28] 


WITH  THE  RAINBOW  DIVISION 

gables  in  the  centre  and,  radiating  from  them,  long 
streets,  bordered  with  houses,  reaching  out  like 
tentacles  to  vassal  villages  that  lay  about  it.  Seen 
from  this  hilltop,  the  city  looked  quite  intact,  and 
even  as  we  speeded  through  its  silent  streets  with 
their  doors  barricaded  and  shutters  tightly  drawn 
there  was  little  evidence  of  destruction. 

This  impression  we  modified  later,  upon  our  re- 
turn. But  for  the  present  we  turned  out  quickly 
upon  the  highroad  to  Luneville.  The  tall  towers 
of  the  church  at  St.  Nicolas-du-Port,  one  of  the 
finest  in  Lorraine  and  hallowed  with  memories  of 
Jeanne  d'Arc,  soon  rose  against  the  sky.  Then  we 
threaded  streets  bordered  with  workmen's  houses 
that  led  to  Varangeville  and  Dombasle,  centres  of 
the  great  salt-mines  and  other  industries  of  the 
Meurthe-et-Moselle.  These  towns,  as  well  as  Lune- 
ville, through  which  we  now  passed,  were  full  of 
French  soldiers,  for  we  were  running  practically 
parallel  with  the  front,  though  at  some  little  dis- 
tance behind  it. 

But  at  Azerailles  the  men's  uniforms  changed 
from  horizon-blue  to  khaki  as  we  entered  the  zone 
held  by  our  troops.    Soon  after,  toward  six  o'clock, 

[29] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

we  reached  Baccarat,  then  and  long  after  an  im- 
portant Division  Headquarters  of  the  American 
army,  and  reported  at  once  to  the  Chief  of  Staff. 

I  was  assigned  to  a  billet  in  a  house  near  the  rail- 
road-station, and  on  my  way  to  it  found  the  streets 
filled  with  our  soldiers,  lined  up  before  the  com- 
missary, talking  in  groups  on  the  corners,  listening 
to  the  band  that  was  playing  in  the  court  of  the 
hospital,  while  heavy  trucks,  ambulances,  and  long 
wagon-trains  went  rattling  over  the  rough  paving- 
stones. 

Baccarat  before  the  war  had  been  a  town  of 
some  importance.  In  the  very  first  onrush  the 
Germans  thrust  through  it,  and  when  they  were 
driven  back  again,  the  bridge  over  the  Meurthe  was 
blown  up  and  the  faubourg  beyond  it  reduced  to 
ruins.  During  this  short  occupation  the  house  in 
which  I  was  billeted  was  used  by  the  German  general 
as  his  headquarters.  Its  owner,  an  'elderly  lady, 
remained  in  it  and  still  occupied  it  when  I  was  there. 

She  told  me  her  story — how  like,  alas,  so  many 
that  I  afterward  heard.  In  a  large  outhouse  beyond 
the  rear  court  she  employed  many  women  making 
the  embroideries  for  which  the  country  hereabouts 

[30] 


Church  ill  Baccarat 


WITH  THE  RAINBOW  DIVISION 

is  quite  famous.  When  the  Germans  came  they 
seized  the  entire  stock,  some  two  hundred  thousand 
francs'  worth,  and  made  off  with  it.  Later,  when 
they  were  driven  out  of  the  town,  they  took,  for 
the  women  who  had  come  with  them,  all  her 
valuables — jewelry,  furs,  silverware,  etc. — loaded 
them  in  trucks  with  all  the  linen  and  blankets  and 
left,  whence  her  apologies  to  me  for  the  poor  bed- 
ding that  was  all  that  she  could  offer  me. 

On  the  following  day,  in  the  late  afternoon,  as 
I  was  sketching  among  the  ruins  across  the  river, 
I  saw  a  band  and  a  camion  standing  in  front  of  the 
hospital  behind  the  church,  and,  presently,  as  the 
band  began  to  play  a  funeral  march,  I  realized  that, 
for  the  first  time,  I  was  to  see  an  American  soldier 
buried  in  France.  So,  as  the  slow-moving  cortege 
came  along,  I  joined  in  behind. 

The  band  marched  at  the  head  followed  by  a 
firing-squad  of  sixteen ;  then  an  army  chaplain  walked 
in  front  of  a  motor-truck  with  three  pall-bearers  at 
each  side,  and  its  canvas  flaps  turned  back  enough 
to  disclose  the  coflSn  covered  by  a  new  American 
flag.  Behind  it  marched  a  lieutenant  and  the  men 
of  the  platoon  to  which  the  soldier  had  belonged — 

[31] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

a  victim  to  duty,  killed,  I  was  afterward  told,  in  a 
hand-grenade  accident. 

Slowly  the  little  procession  passed  the  church, 
ascended  the  hill,  and  turned  out  into  the  open  fields 
beyond.  Two  thin  lines  of  bare  trees  bordered  the 
muddy  road;  a  sombre  sky  hung  leaden  overhead 
and  a  drizzling  rain  was  falling.  The  hills  fell  away 
to  the  right,  and  in  the  valley  the  town  was  visible, 
backed  by  the  hills  near  Raon  I'Etape,  still  pow- 
dered with  the  last  of  the  winter's  snows.  The  boom 
of  the  cannon  off  at  the  front  came  frequently  to 
our  ears,  punctuating  the  music  and  the  roll  of  the 
muffled  drums.  Three  women  in  deep  black  had 
joined  the  procession,  weeping  bitterly. 

As  it  topped  a  final  rise,  a  military  graveyard 
came  into  view,  its  high  gray  crosses  so  close  together 
that  they  formed  a  solid  phalanx.  At  the  inter- 
section of  each  a  tricolored  cockade  was  placed,  and 
these,  from  a  distance,  in  the  uncertain  light,  looked 
like  the  faces  of  spectres  that,  silent,  mysterious, 
stood  with  outstretched  arms  awaiting  the  arrival 
of  their  newest  companion — a  weird,  uncanny  spec- 
tacle that  sent  a  shiver  up  the  spine.  Above  them, 
as  if  borne  aloft  in  their  hands,  rose  double  crosses 

[32] 


WITH  THE  RAINBOW  DIVISION 

of  Lorraine  made  of  boughs,  and  over  the  rustic 
entrance  of  the  cemetery  appeared  the  words: 

MORTS   POUR   LA   FRANCE 

A  grave-digger,  with  his  sabots  and  corduroys 
stained  with  new  red  earth,  stood  by  a  fresh-dug 
grave  in  a  corner  reserved  for  Americans.  The  coffin 
was  carried  to  the  edge  of  the  grave,  the  firing-squad 
took  its  position;  the  chaplain's  droning  voice  in- 
toned the  simple  service,  punctuated  at  intervals  by 
the  sound  of  the  distant  guns;  the  three  volleys  rang 
out  in  the  stillness;  then  "taps."  And  then,  from 
a  little  copse  beyond,  a  second  bugle,  clear  and  strong, 
a  perfect  echo  of  the  first,  sounded  "taps"  again, 
like  the  voice  of  resurrection !  How  lonely,  how 
desolate  it  seemed  to  be  buried  in  this  far  corner 
of  a  foreign  land !  How  often  thereafter  was  I  to 
witness  this  same  scene  and  hear  the  three  volleys 
in  the  afternoon  stillness ! 

We  decided  to  go  next  day  as  far  out  into  the 
trenches  as  our  superior  officers  would  permit  us, 
so  started  by  the  main  road  to  Raon  I'Etape,  turn- 
ing off  there  toward  the  Alsatian  border,  eastward, 

[33] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

through  a  succession  of  villages  filled  with  Amer- 
ican troops. 

This  was  my  first  glimpse  of  them  in  their  billets, 
so  I  noted  their  surroundings  with  interest.  The 
towns  in  this  part  of  Lorraine  are  very  primitive. 
The  church  forms  the  focal  point,  from  which  a 
few  muddy  streets  radiate,  there  being  usually  one 
long  street  traversing  the  town  from  end  to  end  in 
the  general  direction  of  the  highway.  Manure  piles, 
placed  in  front  of  most  of  the  houses,  drain  them- 
selves into  the  open  gutters  of  the  roadways,  so  that, 
especially  in  the  spring  and  autumn,  these  are  grimy 
and  slippery  with  malodorous  mud. 

A  few  maisons  bourgeoises  are  grouped  in  the 
centre  of  the  town,  but  most  of  the  houses  are  of  a 
very  simple  type  and  quite  alike,  one  to  another. 
Their  plain  fronts  are  divided  into  halves.  One 
half  constitutes  the  dwelling  proper,  two  stories 
high,  with  a  door  and  two  windows  below  and  three 
windows  above.  The  other  half  is  a  sort  of  stable 
and  barn  combined,  entered  through  a  big  doorway, 
wide  and  high  enough  to  admit  a  large  farm-wagon. 
In  these  barns,  for  the  most  part,  our  men  were 
billeted,  twenty  to  fifty  in  each,  rolled  at  night  in 

[34] 


WITH  THE  RAINBOW  DIVISION 

their  O.  D.  blankets,  sleeping  in  the  straw.  Field- 
kitchens  were  also  sheltered  under  these  big  door- 
ways, and  before  them  the  dough-boys  lined  up  for 
mess. 

In  the  streets,  round  the  pumps  and  stone  horse- 
troughs,  the  men  were  continually  washing  in  the 
running  water,  though  the  air  was  still  nipping  and 
frosty — ^brushing  their  teeth,  soaping  their  hair, 
their  arms,  their  necks;  shaving  before  their  httle 
steel  mirrors  or  bits  of  broken  glass;  washing  the 
cakes  of  sticky  mud  from  their  rubber  boots — in 
short,  striving  against  all  obstacles  to  keep  clean. 

Dressed  in  their  khaki  uniforms  they  looked 
strangely  ahke,  emanating  a  powerful  impression  of 
ruddy,  clean-shaven  youth;  of  lithe,  athletic  bodies 
with  strong,  clean  limbs — the  only  really  youthful 
army  in  the  field  in  1918. 

And  I  noted  then,  as  I  did  repeatedly  thereafter, 
their  good  humor,  their  constant  cheerfulness,  their 
boyish  healthy  pleasures,  joking,  "scrapping";  teas- 
ing the  old  peasant  women  who  could  not  under- 
stand them;  sitting  toward  evening  with  the  girls 
upon  the  doorsteps. 

Neufmaisons  was  a  typical  village  of  this  type, 

[35] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

and  later  on  we  spent  a  day  there  sketching.  But 
this  first  morning  we  pushed  on  as  far  as  Pexonne, 
reporting  there  to  regimental  headquarters,  where, 
owing  to  the  poor  visibility — it  was  a  foggy,  rainy 
day — we  were  allowed  to  proceed  to  Badonviller. 
The  road  was  camouflaged  and  pitted  with  shell- 
holes.  The  houses  along  it  were  mere  ruins.  The 
big  guns  now  and  then  sounded  unpleasantly  near. 

Badonviller  was  in  ruins,  for  it  had  been  in  the 
front  line  since  the  beginning  of  the  war.  When 
our  troops  moved  in  a  few  weeks  before,  the  Ger- 
mans, of  course,  knew  all  about  it  and  gave  them 
a  hot  welcome.  The  town  bore  unmistakable  evi- 
dence of  this  last  bombardment,  and  our  men  were 
busily  engaged  clearing  away  debris  of  all  descrip- 
tions. 

Everybody  was  living  in  dugouts.  Some  of  these 
had  been  made  quite  comfortable  with  easy  chairs, 
mirrors,  bureaus,  and  other  furniture  borrowed  from 
the  rooms  above.  We  lunched  at  the  major's  mess, 
and  listened  to  tales  of  recent  raids  told  by  the  young 
scout  lieutenants. 

Afterward  we  were  taken  out  into  the  trenches, 
each  accompanied  by  a  runner,  who  acted  as  guide 

[36] 


"%   ^^  ■^?\^\^t>' 


Church  in  Badouviller 


WITH  THE  RAINBOW  DIVISION 

and  orderly.  In  this  quiet  sector,  this  our  first  visit 
to  the  trenches  was  not  as  thriUing  as  we  had  ex- 
pected, as,  beyond  the  trenches  themselves,  with 
their  duck-walks,  fire-steps,  sand-bags,  and  care- 
fully braided  revetments,  there  was  little  to  be  seen. 

That  night,  in  the  OflScers'  Club  in  Baccarat,  I 
met  a  friend.  Major  Tracy  of  the  Camouflage,  with 
a  couple  of  his  coadjutors,  and  it  was  a  fortunate 
meeting,  for  during  the  next  few  days  they  guided 
us  about,  showing  us  things  we  might  not  otherwise 
have  seen  until  much  later  on. 

We  visited  the  big  gun  emplacements  near  Re- 
herry,  where  the  old  "Fighting  Sixty-Ninth,"  now 
the  165th  Infantry,  was  quartered,  and  saw  three 
eight-inch  howitzers  hidden  in  an  apple-orchard 
and  so  well  camouflaged  with  nettings  that  at  a 
distance  of  a  hundred  yards  it  was  impossible  to 
detect  them;  we  skidded  through  the  slimy  mud 
to  a  battery  of  75s,  and  watched  their  lieutenant 
sodding  the  top  of  his  dugout,  which  he  did  so  care- 
fully that,  when  he  had  finished,  the  most  perfect 
aerial  photograph  could  not  have  revealed  its  pres- 
ence; then  listened  to  him  as  he  discoursed  upon 
the  merits  of  his  guns,  clean,  glittering,  and  spotless 

[37] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

in  spite  of  the  mud,  accompanying  his  explanations 
with  the  loving  caresses  of  a  father  showing  a 
favorite  child. 

Another  day,  with  three  artillery  officers,  we  went 
well  up  to  some  advanced  positions  beyond  Pexonne 
to  see  a  battery  of  75s  buried  underground  in 
dugouts  scooped  in  a  hillside.  While  I  was  busily 
sketching  their  rabbit-warren,  I  scarcely  noted  the 
brown  smoke-puffs  of  shrapnel  that  kept  bursting 
nearer  and  nearer,  until  I  saw  a  lieutenant's  head 
appear  from  a  dugout  and  heard  his  voice  calling: 
"Come  in  out  of  that,  captain;  that's  a  very  un- 
healthy spot  just  now;  they're  trying  to  get  our 
range.  .  .  ." 

One  evening  I  attended  a  "show"  given  by  the 
men  of  the  French  division  upon  our  right.  The 
theatre,  though  capable  of  holding  more  than  a 
thousand  people,  was  packed  to  the  doors.  There 
was  a  sprinkling  of  women  and  tradesmen  from  the 
town,  but  the  vast  majority  of  the  audience  was 
military — row  upon  row  of  officers  in  blue  or  khaki 
down-stairs,  and  soldiers  packing  the  galleries  or 
standing  at  the  back  as  on  a  Caruso  night  at  the 
Opera. 

[38] 


WITH  THE  RAINBOW  DIVISION 

Near  the  stage  the  gold  oak-leaves  on  a  French 
general's  hat  sparkled  conspicuously  as  he  stood, 
surrounded  by  his  staff,  awaiting  the  arrival  of  our 
general,  who  came  in  just  before  the  curtain  rose.  A 
band  played  exhilarating  marches,  and  was  replaced 
for  the  incidental  music  and  accompaniments  by  a 
string  orchestra  also  made  up  of  soldiers. 

The  "stunts"  were  varied  and  amusing,  some  of 
the  performers  being  quite  well-known  in  the  Paris 
music-halls.  There  were  the  heroic  recitations  and 
sentimental  songs  dear  to  the  French  heart;  there 
were  comics  whose  songs  were  full  of  Gallic  license; 
there  were  fearful  females  fresh  from  the  trenches, 
with  blonde  hair  and  painted  lips,  who  displayed 
their  silk  stockings  and  lingerie  with  startling 
abandon;  there  were  saynettes  and  bits  of  tragedy, 
and  it  was  long  after  midnight  when  we  groped  our 
way  home  in  the  darkness — to  be  awakened  at  day- 
break by  the  antiaircraft  guns. 

After  a  five  days'  stay  in  the  sector  we  started 
back  to  Chaumont.  As  we  entered  Luneville  a 
French  infantry  regiment  was  coming  through  and 
we  stopped  to  watch  it  go  by.  How  fine  they  looked, 
these  weather-beaten  veterans  in  gray  steel  helmets, 

[39] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

carrying  their  full  rQarching  equipment,  and  swing- 
ing along  to  the  "Sambre  et  Meuse,"  with  their 
guns  held  so  high  that,  with  the  thin  murderous 
bayonet  that  topped  them,  the  narrow  street  fairly 
bristled  with  them,  like  the  tall  pikes  of  ancient 
men-at-arms. 

Farther  on  in  the  town  we  stopped  to  see  the 
palace  that  Stanislas,  ex-King  of  Poland,  father 
of  Marie  Leszinska,  built  as  his  Versailles,  a  vast, 
pompous  pile  of  masonry  that  has  long  been  used 
as  a  cavalry  headquarters,  residence  of  some  well- 
known  general  who  commanded  a  crack  division, 
which,  like  the  famous  division  de  fer  of  Nancy,  as- 
sured the  defense  of  the  frontier.  In  the  centre  of  its 
great  forecourt,  bestriding  a  rampant  charger,  stands 
a  theatrical  statue  of  Lasalle,  ''le  beau  sabreur,'^ 
the  gallant  young  general  of  cavaliers  legers,  those 
winged  couriers  of  the  battle-field  that  once  were 
the  heroes  of  the  fight,  but  are  now  replaced  by  real 
winged  messengers,  the  Guynemers  and  Foncks  of 
the  aviation. 

We  reached  Nancy  by  noon  and  decided  to  stop 
and  spend  the  night  so  as  to  see  the  condition  of 
the  city.  We  first  turned  into  the  Place  Stanislas 
and  found  its  smart  majesty  quite  intact.     Not  one 

[40] 


WITH  THE  RAINBOW  DIVISION 

of  Here's  edifices  that  surround  it  had  been  touched 
and  even  Lamour's  beautiful  grills,  superbly  wrought 
and  gilded,  that  have  served  as  models  for  the  iron- 
work of  many  an  American  millionaire's  palace 
(without  his  knowing  it),  remained  uninjured  along 
one  side  of  it  and  up  the  Place  de  la  Carriere  be- 
yond. In  the  gardens  of  the  Pepiniere,  shaded  by 
ash,  aspens,  and  stately  elms,  a  band  was  playing 
to  a  Sunday  crowd,  and  all  seemed  strangely  normal 
and  peaceful. 

But  when  we  went  to  see  the  ducal  palace  we 
found  its  Gothic  Grande  Porterie  completely  bar- 
ricaded and  the  tombs  of  the  dukes  in  the  Church 
of  the  Cordeliers  adjoining  buried  under  moun- 
tains of  sand-bags.  The  Porte  Desilles  at  the  end 
of  the  Cours  Leopold  took  on  a  new  interest,  for, 
built  in  1785,  was  it  not  designed  to  commemorate 
as  well  as  the  birth  of  the  Dauphin  the  alliance 
of  France  with  the  United  States  ? 

Half  a  century  ago  Nancy,  though  the  intellec- 
tual centre  of  eastern  France  with  a  famed  university 
and  scientific  schools,  counted  only  fifty  thousand 
inhabitants.  But  after  the  War  of  1870  it  grew 
rapidly,  many  of  the  citizens  of  Metz  and  Stras- 
bourg, unwilling  to  live  under  German  rule,  emigrat- 

[41] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

ing  to  it  and  helping  to  develop  its  many  industries, 
which,  owing  to  its  situation  at  the  junction  of  a 
system  of  canals  that  connect  it  with  the  Rhine, 
Saone,  Rhone,  Meuse,  and  Marne,  became  quite 
important.  Thus,  in  1914,  Nancy  had  become  a 
thriving  city  of  a  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  in- 
habitants, a  large  proportion  of  whom  lived  in  the 
newer  quarters  that  sprang  up  around  the  Place 
Thiers. 

It  was  up  in  these  newer  quarters  around  the 
railroad-station  that  most  of  the  damage  from  air- 
raids was  done.  Every  house-front  up  there  was 
spattered  with  the  marks  of  high  explosives.  Every 
window  was  glassless  and  most  of  the  buildings  had 
yawning  breaches  in  their  fagades.  Even  many  of 
those  that  from  the  exterior  looked  quite  intact 
were  mere  ruins  within.  One  big  group  of  buildings 
had  just  been  bombed  a  night  or  two  before  and 
lay  disembowelled  like  a  poor  picador's  horse,  with 
its  entrails — timbers,  stone,  furniture,  laths,  and 
plaster — dragging  in  the  street.  Of  the  hundred 
and  twenty  thousand  inhabitants,  only  forty  thou- 
sand had  been  able  to  hold  out  during  the  one  hun- 
dred and  eighty  raids ! 

[42] 


II 

WITH  THE  MARINES  NEAR 
VERDUN 

THE  first  time  I  saw  the  Marines  was  on  top 
of  the  Cotes  de  Meuse,  where  they  were 
having  their  first  experience  in  the  trenches. 
We  had  left  Neufchateau  early,  passing  through 
Gondrecourt  and  Ligny  on  the  way,  and  had  lunched 
at  the  big  Popotte  des  OfBciers,  a  French  mess  in 
the  busy  Ville  Basse  at  Bar-le-Duc.  We  had  taken 
no  time  to  visit  the  picturesque  Ville  Haute — an- 
cient residence  of  the  Dukes  of  Bar — but  had  pushed 
straight  on  via  Vavincourt  to  Souilly. 

In  the  broad  main  street  of  Souilly  there  were 
few  soldiers,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  before  the  doors 
of  its  stone  houses  there  were  many  sentries,  so  we 
easily  guessed  it  to  be,  as  it  was,  a  very  important 
French  Corps  headquarters.  At  one  crossroads  we 
were   saluted   by   no   less    than    four    sentries:    an 

[43] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

American  M.  P.,  an  Italian  carahiniero,  a  poilu,  and 
a  chasseur  alpin. 

Beyond  Souilly  the  road  was  full  of  movement. 
American  artillery  trains  were  coming  down  and 
with  them  long  strings  of  motor-trucks  loaded  with 
Marines,  thundering  along  at  top  speed  until  the 
earth  fairly  trembled  with  them.  Then  we  began 
to  pass  regiments  of  chasseurs  alpins  marching  up, 
and  we  realized  that  a  relief  was  going  on.  Between 
Ancemont  and  Dieue  we  crossed  the  marshes  of  the 
Meuse  and  soon  arrived  at  Sommedieue. 

Here  the  streets  and  the  place,  camouflaged  with 
long  strips  of  burlaps  hung  across  it  en  echelon,  were 
swarming  with  soldiery.  The  dark-blue  chasseurs 
were  massing  at  one  end,  getting  ready  for  billeting. 
Our  Marines,  in  olive-green,  were  gathered  over  by 
the  river,  washing,  shaving,  scrubbing  in  their  efforts 
to  get  clean  after  their  stay  in  the  trenches.  Superb 
fellows  they  were,  these  *' leather-necks,"  these 
*' hard-boiled  guys,"  as  they  liked  to  call  themselves, 
who  were  so  soon  to  become  famous  at  Belleau  Wood 
— fit  comrades  for  the  renowned  "blue  devils"  of 
France  who  were  gathering  to  relieve  them. 

We  left  our  car  in  the  square,  walked  out  over 

[  44  ] 


WITH  THE   MARINES   NEAR  VERDUN 

the  river  and  beyond  the  last  house  in  the  village, 
and  I,  for  one,  wondered  whither  we  were  going, 
when  our  guide  turned  up  into  a  dense  grove  of  ever- 
greens. There,  hidden  securely  away  among  the 
pine-trees  and  further  artfully  concealed  with  a 
natural  camouflage,  we  found  Division  Headquarters 
in  a  group  of  wooden  huts  that  looked  like  a  camp 
in  California. 

The  Chief  of  Staff  greeted  us  dubiously,  explaining 
that  the  division  was  "on  the  move,"  and  that  he 
did  not  know  whether  we  could  go  up  or  not.  But, 
after  telephoning  to  Brigade  Headquarters,  he  gave 
us  permission  to  proceed.  So,  returning  to  our  car, 
we  motored  out  through  the  Forest  of  Amblonville 
to  a  big  main  road — the  national  highway  from 
Verdun  to  Metz — and  I  read  upon  a  milestone:  "Ver- 
dun, 11  kilometres."  Beyond  the  famous  Fort  du 
Rozellier,  that  bars  this  important  road,  we  turned 
into  the  woods  again  and  found,  as  at  Sommedieue, 
Brigade  Headquarters  cunningly  concealed  in  a 
dense  forest. 

The  general's  aide-de-camp  received  us  and,  as 
we  finished  washing  up  after  our  long  ride,  told  us 
that  the  general  would  like  to  see  us.     We  found 

[45] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

him  waiting  outside  the  hut — General  Harbord, 
then  a  brigadier  just  up  from  G.  H.  Q.,  where  he 
had  been  Adjutant-General,  a  handsome  figure  of  a 
soldier,  dressed  with  such  great  care  that,  in  this 
country  of  sticky  mud,  I  have  never  forgotten  his 
immaculate  riding-boots.  He  explained  that  he 
could  not  keep  us  at  headquarters  that  night,  but 
would  send  us  up  in  his  car  to  a  battalion  head- 
quarters in  a  part  of  the  line  that  he  thought  very 
interesting. 

A  few  miles'  ride  along  a  camouflaged  road  brought 
us  to  a  point  at  the  bottom  of  a  hill  where  we  were 
told  that  the  motor  could  go  no  farther.  So,  getting 
out,  we  walked  on  until  we  found,  hidden  away  in 
an  abandoned  quarry,  some  barracks  and  magazines 
buried  under  row  upon  row  of  sand-bags.  The  of- 
ficers' quarters  in  another  quarry  farther  on  con- 
sisted of  a  number  of  tiny  chambers  dug  in  the  solid 
earth  and  faced  up  with  stone,  a  high  talus  pro- 
tecting their  doors  and  windows  from  flying  shell 
fragments.  The  battalion  commander.  Major  Sibley, 
greeted  us  most  cordially,  had  some  supper  reheated 
for  us  (it  was  long  after  mess-time),  and  then  sent 
us  in  care  of  a  lieutenant  down  into  the  trenches. 

[46] 


I 


WITH  THE  MARINES  NEAR  VERDUN 

Battalion  headquarters  were  on  the  top  of  the 
Cotes  or  Hants  de  Meuse,  a  long  line  of  flat-topped 
hills  that  dominate  the  Woevre.  The  main  high- 
way from  Verdun  to  Metz  intersects  these  hills  by 
taking  advantage  of  a  cleft  between  two  of  them. 
About  midway  down  the  slope  there  stood  a  village, 
Haudiomont,  now  but  a  few  crumbling  walls,  and 
around  this  village  our  first-line  trenches  bent.  Two 
companies  of  the  Sixth  Marines  were  holding  these 
trenches,  and  I  was  to  stay  with  one  company 
commander  while  my  companion  stayed  with  the 
other. 

Our  guide  led  us  down  the  hill  through  the  com- 
municating trenches  that  wriggled  and  doubled  on 
each  other — hoyaux,  as  the  French  call  them — ■ 
filled  with  argillaceous  mud,  ankle-deep,  squashy, 
red,  and  so  slippery  that  it  was  a  constant  effort 
to  keep  one's  feet.  Sometimes  there  were  duck- 
walks,  and  then  the  going  was  better.  At  last  we 
reached  Haudiomont,  or,  more  exactly,  an  outlying 
group  of  its  buildings,  now  mere  fragments  of  walls 
cutting  shapeless  silhouettes  against  the  sky. 

Here  I  decided  to  stay  with  Lieutenant  Noble, 
who,  though  but  twenty-four,  was  commanding  a 

[47] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

company  of  two  hundred  and  ninety  men,  a  company 
that  specially  distinguished  itself  at  Belleau  Wood. 
He  proposed  a  walk  before  dark,  and,  looking  criti- 
cally at  my  shoes,  which  were  very  stout  ones,  said : 
"Those  won't  do;  you'd  better  let  me  fit  you  out 
with  rubber  boots."  When  I  had  put  these  on, 
with  my  "tin  hat,"  my  gas-mask  at  the  "alert," 
and  my  trench  cane,  I  started  on  my  first  real  tour 
of  the  trenches. 

The  men,  as  we  passed,  stood  flattened  against 
the  platted  revetments,  watching.  Every  little 
while  the  pap-pap-pa-p  of  a  machine-gun  sounded 
startlingly  close,  for  the  Boche  trenches  at  certain 
points  were  only  a  hundred  yards  away,  and  at  others 
were  even  connected  with  ours  by  bits  of  abandoned 
boyaux,  now  choked  with  barbed  wire.  Thus  we 
slowly  made  our  round  of  the  little  sector  held  by 
Lieutenant  Noble's  company,  he  meanwhile  taking 
careful  note  of  everything — machine-guns,  auto- 
matics, rockets,  hand-grenades,  having  some  of  the 
latter  thrown  so  as  to  test  them.  Here  and  there 
a  ruined  bit  of  wall  appeared  above  the  parapet — all 
that  remained  of  some  peasant's  comfortable  home. 

Finally  we  reached  the  farthest  outpost  near  what 

[48] 


WITH  THE   MARINES  NEAR  VERDUN 

had  been  the  railroad-station  with  the  Hotel  de  la 
Gare  opposite.  Here,  I  was  told,  the  raids  usually 
came  in,  and  as  the  machine-guns  rattled  my  com- 
panion remarked:  "They're  at  it  early  to-night; 
I  wonder  if  there's  something  doing."  We  then 
began  our  trip  back,  crossing  under  the  Metz  road 
by  a  tunnel,  seeing  some  strongholds  organized  in 
the  houses  that  once  bordered  the  road — Chouses 
that  still  bore  the  livid  marks  of  liquid  fire  burned 
upon  their  faces  from  the  last  attack,  and  ended  our 
tour  at  Lieutenant  Noble's  dugout. 

This  dugout  was  in  a  small  cellar.  A  door  ripped 
from  some  old  Brittany  armoire  closed  its  entrance, 
over  which  an  army  blanket  also  hung,  so  that,  when 
the  door  opened,  no  streak  of  light  could  be  seen. 
The  chief  piece  of  furniture  was  a  large  square  table 
on  which  were  spread  maps,  photographs,  and  papers. 
A  fat,  short  candle  sputtered  on  a  bit  of  wood  that 
did  duty  as  a  candlestick.  A  rude  chair,  a  mirror, 
a  primitive  fireplace  made  of  a  few  bricks,  and  a 
soldier's  bed  made  of  a  few  boards,  chicken-wire, 
and  straw,  completed  its  furnishings.  My  host 
took  his  place  by  the  table  and  told  me  to  take  what 
comfort  I  could  out  of  the  bed,  adding: 

[49] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

*'I'm  going  to  let  you  live  my  life  to-night  just 
as  I  live  it.  I'll  show  you  the  orders  as  they  come 
in,  and  you  can  see  what  a  company  commander's 
night  is  like  in  the  trenches." 

So,  as  the  orderlies  and  runners  came  in  with  their 
despatches,  he  showed  these  to  me:  an  important 
change  in  orders  for  rockets  and  signals  to  go  into 
efiFect  at  once;  orders  for  marching  on  the  morrow 
and  what  to  carry;  the  Intelligence  report  for  the 
day;  company  papers  to  sign,  etc.  At  times,  as 
the  door  opened,  the  bright  white  light  of  flares, 
more  brilliant  than  any  moonlight,  lit  up  the  walls 
outside;  and  every  little  while  I  went  outdoors  to 
watch  these  flares  and  star-shells  illuminate  the  dead 
expanse  of  No  Man's  Land.  Volleys  from  machine- 
guns,  sharp  and  sudden  and  short  rattling  barrages 
from  the  75s  kept  up  an  intermittent  racket.  At 
midnight  an  orderly  appeared,  lit  a  smoky  fire,  and 
brought  in  a  hot  supper — the  principal  meal  in  the 
trenches,  for  only  at  night  can  cooking  be  done — a 
steaming  bowl  of  soup  full  of  meat  and  vegetables, 
canned  peas,  a  cup  of  chocolate,  and  thick  slabs  of 
buttered  bread — a  verj^  substantial  meal. 

I  was  especially  anxious  to  see  dawn  break  over 

[50] 


WITH  THE  IVIARINES  NEAR  VERDUN 

No  Man's  Land,  so  had  arranged  to  have  a  runner 
come  for  me  at  3  a.  m.  and  take  me  to  an  observa- 
tion-post. He  arrived  upon  the  minute  and  led 
me  off  in  the  same  general  direction  I  had  taken 
the  night  before,  his  gun  with  its  fixed  bayonet  catch- 
ing a  glint  of  light  now  and  then.  It  was  still  so 
dark  that  the  men  could  just  be  seen  standing  on 
the  fire-steps  peering  into  the  night.  Suddenly  a 
gun  went  off  quite  near  me;  then  others  up  and 
down  our  line.  Rifle-shots  are  contagious  in  the 
night.  WTiy  did  he  shoot?  He  thought  he  saw 
something  moving  in  the  darkness. 

We  reached  a  ruined  building  where,  I  was  told, 
there  was  an  observation-post  up  sufficiently  high 
to  command  an  extended  view.  I  climbed  some 
rickety  steps  and  found  myself  on  a  broken  flooring 
with  a  few  roof-beams  overhead,  between  which  I 
could  see  the  stars.  One  corner  of  the  ruined  walls 
was  screened  off  with  some  old  cloths  and  blankets. 
Inside  this  enclosure  I  found  a  chink  in  the  wall, 
the  blankets  being  hung  so  as  to  prevent  light  from 
showing  behind  this  chink. 

With  my  eye  glued  to  this  loophole,  I  peered  out 
into  the  darkness.     The  first  streaks  of  da^Ti  soon 

[51] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

came,  and  revealed  the  smashed  timbers  of  the  rail- 
road-station and  crumbling  walls  of  the  Hotel  de 
la  Gare  quite  near.  A  blasted  tree  or  two  still  stood, 
sentinel-like,  along  the  white  road  to  Metz.  The 
fields — if  fields  they  could  be  called — ^beyond  were 
pitted  and  pockmarked  with  shell-holes,  and  just 
below  me,  in  the  immediate  foreground,  was  a  vast 
tangle  of  barbed  wire,  torn  and  twisted  into  perfect 
thickets,  among  which  I  could  distinguish,  here 
and  there,  the  braided  revetments  of  our  trenches. 
Along  the  nearer  edge  of  the  wooded  hill  beyond 
lay  the  German  first-line  outposts. 

The  sharp  morning  air  was  cold  and  still,  and 
in  this  stillness  I  heard  a  cough — for  every  sound 
was  audible — then  the  tac-tac-tac  of  a  machine- 
gun;  then  silence  again.  And  then,  as  the  day  bright- 
ened, the  birds  awoke  and  filled  the  silent  waste 
with  the  carol  of  their  voices.  A  gray  cat  climbed 
softly  down  a  fallen  beam  below  me  hunting  for 
his  breakfast.  Then  came  the  sound  of  low  voices 
quite  near  and,  though  I  could  hear  no  words,  the 
familiar  American  twang  sounded  strangely  out  of 
place  in  these  surroundings. 

The  machine-guns  were  now  actively  astir  again 

[52] 


'T-'^^ll,., 


An  American  Observation-Post 

In  the  former  village  of  Haudiomont,  on  the  front  line  near  Verdun,  overlooking  the  road 

to  Metz 


WITH  THE   MARINES  NEAR  VERDUN 

and  occasionally  the  75s  awoke  the  echoes.  The 
sun  rose  in  a  cloudless  sky,  and  the  mystery,  the 
witchery,  the  dread  of  the  night  were  gone. 

I  climbed  back  to  headquarters  through  the 
viscous  mud  that  glued  to  my  boots  at  every  step 
until  my  feet  became  enormous  and  heavy  as  lead. 
Then  walked  six  kilometres  back  to  Brigade  Head- 
quarters, admonished  as  I  departed  to  "keep  over 
to  the  left  behind  the  camouflage,  for  otherwise 
remember  you  are  under  observation."  I  lunched 
at  the  general's  mess  and,  as  we  were  finishing,  the 
French  liaison  officer,  who  had  made  the  entire  Ver- 
dun campaign,  proposed  that  we  motor  over  to  those 
historic  fields. 

It  was  but  a  short  ride.  We  soon  left  the  friendly 
cover  of  the  woods  and  came  out  into  the  utter 
desolation  of  the  Verdun  hills.  There  we  got  out 
and  began  to  walk. 

As  we  advanced  the  spectacle  was  terrifying. 
Shell-hole  overlapped  shell-crater;  the  earth  was 
ploughed  and  torn,  blown  up  and  smashed  down 
again.  Ever^^  step  was  a  pitfall.  Weapons  of  every 
description,  grenades,  canteens,  shells,  casques,  ac- 
coutrements, bits  of  uniforms  stained  with  a  putrid 

[53] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

red-brown  varnish,  and  in  certain  shell-holes 
whitening  bones  sticking  out  of  the  stinking  water, 
and  in  one  a  boot  floating  with  a  foot  still  in 
it.  Though  it  was  Maytime,  the  only  vestige  of 
green  that  Nature  could  bestow  v/as  a  few  blades  of 
grass  on  the  edges  of  the  new  craters. 

"Do  you  know  where  you  are?"  asked  the 
French  officer.  "No?  You're  in  the  village  of 
Fleury." 

I  had  already  seen  a  few  ruined  villages,  and  I 
have  seen  many  since,  but  few  have  I  beheld  ruined 
as  Fleury  was  ruined.  Usually  a  bit  of  the  solid 
masonry  of  a  church  is  left,  or  a  few  segments  of 
wall  or  a  road  that  was  once  a  street,  but  here  at 
Fleury  no  trace  of  a  town  remained;  not  a  gate  nor 
a  doorway  nor  a  bit  of  broken  wall  rose  above  the 
utter  desolation.  Nothing  but  stones  and  bits  of 
furniture;  beams  and  broken  household  utensils, 
like  the  debris  that  accumulates  in  vacant  lots  on 
the  outskirts  of  great  cities. 

And  when  I  raised  my  eyes  to  the  far  horizon 
the  spectacle  was  everywhere  the  same.  Not  a  tree; 
not  a  green  thing.  Hills  as  bare  as  the  palm  of  your 
hand.     Where  once  had  been  orchards,  vineyards, 

[54] 


WITH  THE  MARINES  NEAR  VERDUN 

and  well-kept  woods,  now  were  lunar  solitudes, 
vast  stretches  of  desert,  utterly  devoid  of  life. 

Not  utterly,  however,  for  down  in  a  hollow  I 
saw  the  fierce  tongues  of  batteries  and  heard  the 
roar  of  their  voices  and  I  knew  that,  hidden  away 
in  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  in  great  excavations, 
men  were  hiding.  Off  to  the  north  rose  Douaumont 
and  to  the  eastward  Vaux,  for  we  were  standing 
just  where  the  last  German  waves  had  beat  them- 
selves in  vain  against  the  adamantine  ring  of  outer 
fortresses. 

And  toward  the  southward  I  could  see  a  citadel, 
two  spires,  some  gaping  roofs,  and  chimneys  without 
smoke — ^Verdun,  the  City  Impregnable,  whose  name 
will  go  down  through  the  ages  linked  with  the 
greatest  battle  in  history. 


[55] 


in 

IN  GERMAN  ALSACE  WITH  THE 
THIRTY- SECOND 

IN  the  beginning  of  May,  I  heard,  through  a 
friend  attached  to  G  2  of  the  First  Army  Corps, 
that  one  of  our  divisions  was  going  into  Hne 
down  in  German  Alsace  near  the  Swiss  border,  in 
a  sector  that  the  French  had  conquered  in  the  be- 
ginning of  the  war  and  had  held  ever  since.  I  spoke 
of  this  to  my  chief  at  G.  H.  Q.,  and  he  promised  to 
get  me  down  there — a  promise  he  kept  so  well  that, 
a  few  days  later,  he  took  me  down  himself  in  a  big 
Cadillac. 

I  look  back  upon  this  trip  as  something  in  the 
nature  of  an  excursion.  We  started  on  a  beautiful 
May  morning,  the  air  clear  and  crisp;  the  sun,  for 
the  first  time,  was  bright  and  warm;  the  hills  and  fields 
clothed  with  their  new  spring  dress.  One  by  one 
the  towns  went  flying  by:   Mirecourt,  headquarters 

[56] 


IN  GERMAN  ALSACE 

of  gallant  General  Castelnau;  Epinal,  with  its 
memories  of  the  images  dear  to  every  French  child's 
heart;  Remiremont,  set  in  its  ring  of  verdant  hills. 
No  sign  of  war  was  anywhere  in  evidence  save,  here 
and  there  in  the  villages,  groups  of  soldiers  in  hori- 
zon-blue en  repos. 

At  Le  Thillot  we  chose  the  short  and  steep  road 
over  the  mountains  via  the  Ballon  dAlsace,  one 
of  the  most  famous  view-points  in  the  Vosges.  A 
series  of  sharp  zigzags  soon  brought  us  well  above 
the  valleys  until  these  lay  spread  out  beneath  us 
like  colored  contour  maps,  and  then  were  blotted 
out  by  forests  of  evergreens  where  woodmen  with 
their  oxen  were  hauling  logs  or  patiently  stacking 
cord-wood  in  neat  graded  piles  along  the  roadside. 
The  road  became  steeper.  Our  powerful  engine 
snorted  but  took  the  hills  easily.  The  woods  opened 
and  barren  uplands  appeared. 

A  sentry  at  a  barrier  stopped  us  to  inspect  our 
magic  pink  headquarters  pass  just  as  we  reached 
the  highest  point  of  the  road.  The  colonel  proposed 
a  climb  to  La  Vierge,  a  huge  figure  of  the  Virgin 
that  tops  the  Ballon  dAlsace.  He  set  off  at  a  great 
pace,  climbing  around  the  fields  of  barbed  wire  that 

[57] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

defended  the  summit  until  we  reached  the  statue 
that  dominates  a  vast  sweep  of  the  Rhine  Valley. 
The  buttresses  of  the  Ballon  plunged  steeply  down 
into  the  valleys  that  I  was  to  visit  within  the  next 
few  days.  Thann,  Massevaux,  Mulhausen,  Alt- 
kirch  lay  spread  in  the  plain,  and  along  the  horizon 
we  could  feel,  though  we  could  not  actually  see  it, 
the  Rhine,  then  the  goal  of  all  our  desires. 

We  coasted  down  through  the  woods  again  and 
arrived  at  Belfort,  France's  great  frontier  fortress, 
toward  four  o'clock.  The  town  had  suffered  sorely 
from  air-raids,  but  its  life  was  still  going  on.  And, 
as  I  passed  through  it,  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  the 
great  Lion,  more  than  seventy  feet  long,  that  Bar- 
tholdi  carved  from  the  solid  red  sandstone  cliff 
that  holds  Vauban's  famous  citadel  upon  its  sum- 
mit— the  Lion  de  Belfort  who,  raising  himself  on 
his  haunches,  growls  toward  Germany,  commemorat- 
ing Denfert-Rochereau's  heroic  defense  of  the  city 
during  the  terrible  winter  of  1870-1871. 

Through  the  ancient  Porte  de  Brisach  we  left 
the  city  and  followed  out  the  so-called  "trouee  de 
Belfort,"  the  vulnerable  gap  between  the  Vosges 
and  the  Jura,  the  possession  of  which  by  an  enemy 

[58] 


IN  GERMAN  ALSACE 

would  lay  France  open  to  an  invasion  from  the  east. 
Finally  we  reached  La  Chapelle-sous-Rougemont. 

Tn  this  small  town  were  established  the  head- 
quarters of  the  division — ^which  I  found  to  be  the 
Thirty-Second — to  which  I  was  going.  As  we  ar- 
rived, the  inspiring  notes  of  a  band  of  the  chasseurs 
alpins,  those  blue  devils  so  intimately  connected 
with  the  Vosges  campaigns,  greeted  our  ears,  setting 
our  pulses  going  with  the  fast  rhythm  of  the  marches 
and  the  brilliant  flourishes  of  their  trumpets. 

Division  Headquarters  occupied  an  ordinary 
Adrian  barracks  divided  into  offices  by  rough  pine 
partitions.  Into  one  of  these  offices  my  chief  led 
me  and  introduced  me  to  the  division  commander, 
Major-General  Haan,  the  man  who  had  trained  the 
division  in  Waco,  Texas,  brought  it  to  France,  led 
it  afterward  into  its  first  fights,  and  made  it  what  it 
was,  one  of  the  crack  divisions  of  the  A.  E.  F.,  the 
only  National  Guard  unit  chosen  later  to  form  pa-rt 
of  the  Army  of  Occupation  on  the  Rhine. 

He  was  more  than  kind  to  me  during  my  stay 
with  his  men,  and  his  aide-de-camp  guided  me  to 
the  most  interesting  points  in  the  front  line.  To- 
gether   we    visited    the    observation-posts    beyond 

[59] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

Soppe-le-Bas  and  peered  through  narrow  slits 
in  these  steel  boxes  at  Ammertzwiller  and  Bem- 
haupt-le-Bas,  ruined  villages  in  No  Man's  Land 
where  the  Germans  had  their  O.  P.'s.  Again,  we 
walked  out  along  the  abandoned  Canal  du  Rhone 
to  a  lock  in  which  one  of  our  outposts  were  estab- 
lished and,  on  the  way  back,  got  a  good  shelling 
from  the  German  batteries  that  were  trying  to  locate 
our  artillery  positions.  We  visited  these  too  and, 
for  the  first  time,  I  heard  the  bark  of  the  240s — a 
roar,  especially  when  the  guns  fired  in  salvos  of  four, 
that  set  my  ears  ringing. 

But  these  were  the  only  bits  of  real  warfare  that 
I  witnessed  in  that  sector.  Both  oflBcers  and  men 
were  straining  at  the  leash,  so  to  speak,  eager  to 
get  out  and  fight  and  push  their  way  to  the  Rhine, 
but  held  back,  and  for  excellent  reasons,  by  the 
High  Command. 

I  saw  one  or  two  sham  battles,  however.  One 
afternoon  General  Haan  asked  me  to  go  with 
him  on  a  tour  of  inspection,  accompanied  by  his 
officier  de  liaison,  a  remarkable  major  who  looked 
like  an  Irishman  in  a  French  colonial  uniform,  and 
by  his  French  aide-de-camp,  who  had  received  eighty- 

[OOi 


tf 


r     ^ 
X     ^ 


-L  &  ji 


■r.  if. 


IN  GERMAN  ALSACE 

two  wounds,  the  only  visible  sign  of  which  was  a 
black  patch  over  one  eye. 

As  we  drove  along,  I  watched  with  interest  the 
effect  of  the  two  stars  on  their  red  field  that  signalled 
the  general's  car.  Everybody  was  ''on  his  toes." 
The  M.  P.'s  stiffened  and  gave  their  smartest  salutes; 
the  sentries  rattled  their  guns  in  their  snappiest 
manner.  We  stopped  in  a  field  near  Giromagny 
to  watch  an  infantry  battalion  advance  under  cover 
of  the  artillery  over  a  supposed  No  Man's  Land  to 
take  a  village  beyond.  The  platoons  worked  their 
way  forward  slowly,  signalling  to  each  other  so  as 
to  keep  in  touch  by  means  of  rockets  fired  from  pis- 
tols. Every  little  while  they  stopped,  took  what 
cover  they  could  find,  and  then  went  on  again.  It 
all  looked  very  quiet  and  far  removed  from  the  dash 
and  clatter  of  the  bayonet  charge  that  the  stay-at- 
home  might  expect,  and  yet,  when  I  saw  the  real 
thing  later,  I  realized  that  this  was,  generally  speak- 
ing, what  modern  warfare  actually  looked  like. 

Later,  quite  by  myseff,  I  spent  a  couple  of  days 
in  exploring  the  north  end  of  the  sector  in  a  side- 
car, my  first  experience  with  a  "wife-killer."  One 
day  I  sketched  in  and  around  Massevaux,  or  Mas- 

[61] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

munster  as  the  Germans  call  it,  the  principal  town 
of  the  valley  of  the  DoUer — a  typical  Alsatian  burg 
with  high-pitched  roofs  and  half-timbered  houses, 
seat  of  a  famous  abbey  of  nuns  founded  in  the  eighth 
century.  Just  before  the  French  Revolution  the 
abbey,  which  had  become  so  important  that 
Catherine  of  Russia  was  sent  to  it  to  be  educated, 
was  to  be  rebuilt  and  enlarged.  An  architect  from 
Strasbourg  was  called  in,  Kleber  by  name,  the  same 
who  afterward  became  so  renowned  as  a  general. 
The  main  building  that  he  designed  was  destroyed 
by  fire,  but  if  it  may  be  judged  by  the  portions  that 
remain,  no  great  artistic  loss  was  suffered,  for  Kleber 
would  seem  to  have  been  a  much  better  soldier  than 
architect. 

Up  the  valley  beyond  Massevaux  the  reserve 
battalions  of  the  125th  Infantry  were  billeted 
through  little  manufacturing  villages,  Kirchberg, 
Oberbruch,  Dolleren,  whose  tiny  cottages  resembled 
the  houses  in  Noah's  Ark,  our  men  towering  enor- 
mous beside  their  diminutive  doors  and  windows. 
On  Sunday  the  people,  misshapen,  homely,  trooped 
to  church,  dressed  in  strange  clothes,  and  those 
queer  bonnets  that  one  sees  in  certain  parts  of  south- 

[62] 


~   o 


=:  c« 


IN  GERMAN  ALSACE 

ern  Germany,  and  their  guttural  patois,  at  that  period 
of  the  war,  sounded  singularly  obnoxious  to  the  ear. 

As  south  Alsace  is  much  more  germanophile  than 
the  northern  end  of  the  province,  I  was  constantly 
interested  in  watching  the  attitude  of  its  inhabitants 
toward  our  soldiers.  Indifferent  they  certainly 
were  not,  and  I  thought  most  of  them  distinctly 
surly  and  ill-tempered,  which  impression  was  con- 
firmed by  many  of  our  officers.  As  I  bumped  along 
the  road  beside  my  driver  with  his  rifle  strapped 
down  the  handle-bar,  I  caught,  out  of  the  tail  of 
my  eye,  many  a  sour  glance  cast  in  our  direction — 
the  kind  of  glance  that,  in  the  old  legends  of  the 
country,  turned  wine  to  vinegar. 

But,  as  I  have  said  before,  this  little  trip  of  mine 
into  German  Alsace  was  quite  in  the  nature  of  an 
excursion,  a  glimpse  of  a  charming  country  in  May- 
time. 

But  it  was  my  last  peaceful  experience.  The 
period  of  preparation  of  our  combat  divisions  was 
almost  ended.  The  hour  of  their  active  participa- 
tion in  battle  was  at  hand,  sooner  than  any  one  could 
have  expected.  When  next  I  saw  the  Thirty-Second, 
it  was  pushing  its  way  up  to  Fismes. 

[63] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

By  the  time  I  returned  to  Neufchateau,  the  month 
of  May  had  almost  passed.  On  Thursday,  the  30th, 
the  Germans  broke  through  between  Soissons  and 
Reims,  and  a  few  days  later  had  fought  their  way 
into  Chateau-Thierry,  where  they  had  been  tem- 
porarily halted.  Those  were  dark  days — in  many 
ways  the  darkest  of  the  war.  While  hoping  for  the 
best,  every  one  feared  the  worst. 


[64] 


m 

CHATEAU-THIERRY   AND  THE  MARNE 


I 

BELLEAU  WOOD 

CHATEAU-THIERRY  had  been  taken  and 
the  Germans  were  on  the  Marne  again  only 
fifty  miles  from  Paris. 
On  the  1st  of  June  I  was  ordered  to  that  city 
on  a  special  mission.  The  only  other  American  in 
the  compartment  was  a  colonel,  just  back  from  the 
Philippines,  who,  having  reported  at  G.  H.  Q.,  was 
now  on  his  way  to  rejoin  his  old  command,  a  regi- 
ment in  the  Third  Division.  At  Bar-sur-Aube  we 
found  his  troops  on  the  move,  the  station  littered 
with  field  equipment  and  crowded  with  men  in 
kliaki. 

At  Troyes  the  depot  was  filled  with  refugees — 
the  first  tide  of  forlorn-looking  derelicts  bound  they 
knew  not  whither.  Here  ensued  a  long  delay,  and 
after  that  we  made  very  slow  progress.  At  Romilly 
the  tide  of  refugees  increased,  and  as  our  train  drew 

[67] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

in  they  broke  their  bounds  and  Hterally  stormed 
it,  fiUing  with  their  pitiful  bundles  every  available 
corner.  At  Nogent  the  same  sad  picture — the  plat- 
forms a  confused  and  swaying  mass  of  humanity  laden 
with  every  conceivable  object:  bedding,  bird-cages, 
clothing,  boxes,  bags,  and  household  articles  piled 
into  baby-carriages.  Strings  of  locomotives  from 
the  repair-shops  and  roundhouses  of  Chateau - 
Thierry  were  being  towed  into  comparative  safety. 
One  felt  the  Germans  very  near,  as  indeed  they  were, 
this  line  being  the  next  one  menaced  in  any  new 
advance. 

Now  we  began  to  meet  troop-trains  one  after 
another  until  the  tracks  were  fairly  choked  with 
them,  hastening  up  reinforcements  where  they  were 
sorely  needed.  We  were  due  in  Paris  at  6  p.  m., 
but  at  that  hour  were  still  creeping  along  many 
miles  from  the  city.  Long  stops  followed  and  it 
was  1  A.  M.  when  we  finally  reached  the  suburbs. 
I  was  just  congratulating  myself  that  the  long  jour- 
ney was  over  when  we  were  shunted  off  on  to  a  sid- 
ing. 

Suddenly  the  heavens  lit  up,  streaked  with  the 
tall  shafts  of  search -lights.     Innumerable  new  stars 

[68] 


BELLEAU  WOOD 

and  constellations  blinked  and  twinkled  in  the 
firmament  and  the  barking  voices  of  the  antiair- 
craft guns  told  us  we  were  in  for  an  air-raid. 

Nearer  came  the  lights.  New  batteries  awoke. 
Bright  flashes  streaked  the  sky  and  the  din  grew 
momentarily  louder.  Two  women  in  our  compart- 
ment almost  went  into  hysterics,  continually  crying, 
as  we  tried  to  reassure  them:  "Que  voulez-vous;  nous 
sommes  des  femmes !''  And  it  was  terrifying,  out 
in  the  open  night  with  only  the  roof  of  the  car  over- 
head for  protection.  The  din  reached  its  climax; 
the  lights  grew  dimmer,  the  barrage  more  distant, 
and  we  thought  that  all  was  over.  But  a  new  cres- 
cendo arose.  Again  the  flashes;  again  the  roar  of 
the  guns  and  the  bursting  bombs,  and  again  all  died 
away. 

It  was  a  long  raid — ^four  separate  attacks,  one 
after  another;  then,  after  nearly  two  hours'  delay, 
quiet  was  restored,  and  at  3  a.  m.  we  pulled  into 
Paris  and  emerged  from  the  Gare  de  I'Est  into  the 
Stygian  darkness  of  unlighted  streets.  .  .  . 

When  I  returned  to  G.  H.  Q.  a  few  days  later, 
the  first  fights  in  Belleau  Wood  had  already  taken 
place  but  the  wood  was  not  yet  entirely  cleared. 

[69] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

So,  with  two  comrades,  I  set  off  by  motor  in  that 
direction.  We  had  a  long  day's  ride  via  Joinville, 
St.  Dizier,  and  Vitry-le-Frangois.  The  road  de- 
scended the  valley  of  the  Marne,  following,  for  the 
most  part,  the  river  itself,  which  gathers  size  before 
your  eyes. 

Beyond  Vitry  we  entered  the  bare  open  reaches 
of  La  Champagne,  marked  here  and  there  with  the 
lonely  graves  of  the  brave  fellows  who  fell  while 
trying  in  vain  to  stem  the  first  German  advance. 
The  road  lay  straight  before  us  for  miles,  rolling 
up  and  down  a  monotonous  succession  of  hills  one 
after  another. 

Though  we  were  well  behind  the  lines,  at  times 
the  traffic  was  intense.  Chains  of  camions,  making 
an  infernal  clatter  and  din,  thundered  along  at  light- 
ning speed,  enveloped  in  sickening  clouds  of  dust. 
Under  the  deep  hoods  their  drivers'  faces  appeared, 
covered  with  a  whitish  mask  of  limy  powder,  spread 
thickest  on  their  eyebrows  and  beards  and  in  the 
wrinkles  of  their  foreheads,  until  they  looked  like 
some  strange  creatures  of  the  Nibelungenlied  or 
men  in  the  legends  of  the  Norsemen. 

We  passed  a  big  American  camp  near  Sommesous, 

[70] 


BELLEAU  WOOD 

and  beyond  that,  strings  of  British  aviation  lorries 
and  ambulances  driven  by  dusty  blond  English- 
women. At  Connantre  we  waited  at  the  railroad- 
crossing  while  long  trains  of  Italians  went  by  on 
their  way  up  toward  Chalons  or  Reims.  All  the 
resources  of  the  Allies  were  being  rushed  up  to  parry 
the  next  desperate  blow. 

We  reached  Montmirail  toward  evening,  and  next 
morning  set  out  for  the  headquarters  of  our  Second 
Division,  which  we  learned  were  in  a  chateau  not 
far  from  Essises.  This  we  found  without  much 
trouble,  though  every  precaution  had  been  taken 
to  conceal  the  importance  of  the  spot. 

An  M.  P.  stopped  us  some  distance  away  and 
ordered  our  car  parked  under  the  trees.  We  were 
then  led  through  the  woods  and  by  the  shaded  walks 
of  the  vegetable-garden  to  a  back  door  of  the  hand- 
some chateau,  whose  main  gates  remained  closed 
as  if  the  place  was  uninhabited. 

Inside,  however,  we  found  it  teeming  with  ac- 
tivity. Orderlies  and  stenographers  filled  the  bil- 
liard-room; the  Intelligence  and  telephones  occupied 
a  large  drawing-room.  The  Chief  of  Staff  received 
us  in  a  smaller  salon  in  which  the  furniture  had  been 

[71] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

pushed  back  and  replaced  by  a  big  work-table  on 
horses,  upon  which  were  spread  large-scale  maps 
concealed  by  papers. 

After  questioning  us,  he  sent  us  up  to  Brigade 
Headquarters,  where,  in  an  abandoned  farm,  La 
Malmaison,  beyond  Viffort,  we  found  General  Sladen. 
We  told  the  general  of  our  desire  to  see  and  make 
drawings  of  Chateau-Thierry — ^a  desire  at  that  time 
not  easy  to  gratify.  He  showed  us  on  the  map  where 
we  might  go  and  sent  his  aide-de-camp  with  us  as 
far  as  regimental  headquarters.  Here  we  were  sup- 
plied with  a  runner  who  led  us  out  through  the  fields 
and  woods  to  a  hill  just  above  Nesles.  The  town, 
surrounded  as  it  was  with  artillery  positions,  was 
being  shelled  and  the  detonations  sounded  uncom- 
fortably near.  Then  as  we  walked  farther  on,  a 
sniper's  bullet  zinged  between  one  of  my  companions 
and  myself  and  snapped  off  a  branch  of  a  sapling 
just  beside  us. 

After  that  we  proceeded  very  cautiously,  finally 
stepping  from  the  fringe  of  woods  into  an  orchard. 

The  ground  fell  away  down  to  the  Marne,  and 
there,  directly  opposite,  only  a  mile  or  so  away, 
looking  quite  peaceful — unbelievably  so,  in  fact — 

[72] 


BELLEAU   WOOD 

lay  Chateau-Thierry.  Rumor  had  it  that  the  town 
had  been  destroyed  and  burned.  Yet  every  Uttle 
while,  as  the  sun  shone  through  rifts  in  the  clouds, 
it  lighted  up  different  parts  of  the  city — ^the  ware- 
houses round  the  depot  on  the  near  side  of  the  river, 
the  conspicuous  tower  of  the  church  of  St.  Crepin, 
the  emplacement  of  the  old  chateau,  and,  from  this 
distance,  little  damage  appeared.  On  the  hills  be- 
yond the  city  the  Germans  lay  concealed  and  every 
little  while  a  shell  would  come  singing  toward  us 
with  that  strange  wabbly  noise  that  we  grew  to 
know  so  well,  and  would  burst  behind  us  over  toward 
Nesles;  and  every  little  while  a  black  puff  of  smoke 
or  a  gray  one,  breaking  beyond  the  city,  would  show 
the  effectiveness  of  our  reply. 

When  we  had  completed  our  sketches,  we  turned 
back,  little  realizing,  in  those  dark  days,  that  in  a 
short  space  of  time,  we  should  be  walking  in 
Chateau-Thierry's  ruined  streets. 

Next  day  we  set  out  for  Belleau  Wood. 

After  some  trouble  we  found  the  headquarters  of 
General  Harbord's  brigade  in  a  deserted  farmhouse. 
La  Loge,  situated  on  the  main  road  from  Paris  to 
Chateau-Thierry,    a    little    beyond    Montreuil-aux- 

[73] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

Lions.  This  was  the  same  brigade  that  I  had  visited 
near  Verdun  and,  up  to  that  time,  it  had  done  all  the 
fighting  in  the  Bois  de  Belleau.  From  La  Loge  we  went 
on  to  Maison  Blanche,  the  headquarters  of  Colonel 
Neville's  regiment,  the  Sixth  Marines,  in  which 
we  found  the  colonel  conferring  with  his  second  in 
command  and  one  or  two  other  oflScers,  but  he  left 
presently  to  make  a  tour  of  inspection  in  the  wood. 

The  lieutenant-colonel  took  us  about  and  showed 
us  the  big  fresh  shell-holes  in  the  orchard  and  a  new 
hole  gaping  in  the  roof.  We  carefully  concealed 
our  car  in  the  woods  near  by  and  he  gave  us  a  runner 
to  guide  us  to  Belleau  Wood,  saying,  as  we  parted: 
"Go  as  far  as  you  like,  but  be  sure  to  keep  fifty  paces 
apart  on  the  way  out." 

Thus  spaced  in  single  file,  we  set  out  through 
shell-torn  fields  and  bits  of  woodland  where  the 
branches  hung  limp,  snapped  off  by  bullets,  and 
where  the  narrow  paths  were  choked  by  fallen  trees. 
Through  an  opening  we  could  see  Lucy-le-Bocage 
lying  off  to  the  left,  ruined,  desolate,  deserted.  From 
this  point  on,  we  followed  a  little  ravine  or  gully 
that  afforded  us  some  protection  (for  the  shells  were 
coming   over)    and   through   which   the  men   made 

[74] 


BELLEAU  WOOD 

their  way  to  and  from  the  wood.  Here  and  there 
a  pile  of  fresh  earth,  marked  with  a  bit  of  paper 
fastened  to  a  stick  and  with  a  steel  helmet  placed 
upon  it,  showed  where  some  poor  fellow  had  paid 
the  ultimate  price. 

Then  we  reached  a  culvert  that  carried  the  road 
from  Lucy  to  Bouresches  across  the  ravine.  Under 
the  protection  of  its  stone  supports,  we  found  a  first- 
aid  dressing-station  established,  and  here  we  stopped 
a  moment  to  rest.  A  few  wounded  lay  about  wait- 
ing to  be  sent  back.  Above  my  head  a  great  tree 
had  been  lopped  off  by  a  shell  and  lay  across  the 
gully.  The  bottom  of  the  ravine  itself  was  littered 
with  debris  of  every  description,  with  parts  of  gas- 
masks, cans,  canteens,  broken  stretchers,  rifles, 
cartridge-belts,  and  fragments  of  bloody  uniforms 
ripped  from  wounded  men — sorry  relics  of  suffering. 

There  were  too  the  articles  from  their  pockets: 
tobacco-tins,  gum,  cards,  and  especially  bits  of  torn 
letters  from  home.  And  as  I  sat  in  this  scene  of 
anguish,  my  eye  caught  these  words  written  on  a 
fragment  of  paper:  "A  son  such  as  I  have  found 
you  to  be.  God  grant  that  you  may  be  returned 
to  that  mother  has  and  will  be  my  constant  prayer." 

[75] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

An  ambulance  appeared  for  a  moment  on  the 
road  above  the  culvert,  loaded  its  human  freight, 
and  turned  back  again.  Stalwart  Marines  with 
rifles  and  packs  made  their  way  cautiously  through 
the  ravine  on  their  way  up  to  the  wood.  In  the 
heat  of  the  June  afternoon  the  smell  of  the  clotted 
blood  and  the  stings  of  the  big  gray  horse-flies  grew 
unbearable. 

We  climbed  out  of  the  gully  and  stood  for  a  moment 
on  the  open  road,  looking  at  the  desolation  over 
toward  Bouresches,  then  dropped  down  into  the 
ravine  again,  and  continued  our  way  until  we  reached 
the  south  end  of  the  Bois  de  Belleau. 

Here,  by  good  fortune,  I  found  Major  Sibley's 
battalion,  the  very  one  that  I  had  visited  near  Hau- 
diomont.  The  major  greeted  us  warmly  and  led 
us  over  to  his  dugout,  situated  among  those  of  his 
men  in  the  thick  of  the  woods. 

Belleau  Wood,  now  become  so  famous  in  Amer- 
ican annals  of  the  war,  is  but  a  little  stretch  of  wood- 
land, running  north  and  south,  scarcely  more  than 
a  mile  in  length  and  half  a  mile  wide.  It  is  composed 
for  the  most  part  of  small  trees  that  grow  in  clusters 
from  a  single  root  and  interlock  their  branches  to 

[76] 


BELLEAU  WOOD 

form  thickets  so  dense  that  it  is  with  difficulty  that 
one  pushes  his  way  through  them  or  sees  more  than  a 
few  yards  ahead.  Here  and  there  taller  trees — ^birches, 
beeches,  and  oaks — tower  above  this  smaller  growth, 
and  in  certain  parts  of  the  wood,  especially  toward 
its  east  front,  the  ground  rises  into  steep  eminences 
crowned  with  big  gray  boulders  that  form  ideal 
shelters  for  machine-gun  nests. 

In  this  tangled  bit  of  woodland,  a  veritable 
fortress,  the  Germans  had  securely  established  them- 
selves in  their  forward  thrust  toward  Paris,  and  it 
was  from  this  stronghold  that  our  gallant  Marines 
had  had  to  drive  them. 

Seated  near  his  dugout,  with  the  shells  whistling 
overhead  and  at  times  snapping  off  the  branches 
near  us,  the  major  told  us  of  the  attack,  describing 
how  his  men  fought  their  way  into  the  wood,  wriggled 
on  their  bellies  through  the  dense  underbrush,  and 
finally  charged  the  machine-gun  nests  hidden  in  the 
rocks  and  clubbed  the  gunners  over  the  heads  with 
the  butts  of  their  rifles.  Lieutenant  Noble's  com- 
pany, it  seems,  was  in  the  thick  of  it,  suffered 
severely,  but  behaved  like  heroes,  and  their  com- 
mander was  recommended  for  the  D.  S.  C. 

[77] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

None  of  us,  I  am  sure,  at  that  time  realized  the 
importance  of  the  engagement  nor  the  place  it  would 
take  in  American  history.  We  only  thought  of  it 
as  the  first  "real  scrap"  that  our  soldiers  had  been 
in,  and  knew  that  their  behavior  in  it  gave  most 
brilliant  promise  for  the  future. 

There,  about  us  in  the  wood,  were  the  men  who 
had  done  the  work.  And  truly  a  strange  picture 
they  made,  scattered  among  the  trees,  each  buried 
to  the  shoulders  in  his  sandy  dugout,  for  all  the  world 
like  prairie-dogs  peering  from  their  burrows.  Some 
were  busily  cleaning  their  guns,  or  polishing  up 
their  accoutrements;  while  others  were  rearranging 
their  kits  and  brushing  their  muddy  uniforms.  Peck- 
ing about  among  them  I  noticed  a  small  speckled 
hen — a  strange  sight,  indeed,  in  such  a  place — and 
I  asked  about  her. 

**Why,  that's  Lucy,"  the  major  said.  And  he 
told  us  that  when  his  men  took  Lucy-le-Bocage  this 
little  chicken  was  the  only  living  thing  they  found 
there.  Though  food  was  very  scarce,  Lucy's  life 
was  spared  and  she  became  the  battalion  mascot, 
pecking  for  crumbs  with  impunity  though  followed 
by  hundreds  of  hungry  eyes. 

[78] 


A  Majors  Dugout  iu  Helleau  \\oo(l 


BELLEAU  WOOD 

Toward  evening  the  bombardment  redoubled  In 
intensity.  The  colonel  returned  from  his  tour  of 
the  wood,  and  we  started  back  with  him  toward 
his  headquarters.  Hostile  planes  hovered  overhead 
and  several  times  we  had  to  take  cover  in  the  edge 
of  the  woods.  The  shells  too  were  falling  uncom- 
fortably close.  When  we  reached  Maison  Blanche 
again  we  found  that  a  big  one  had  just  burst  in 
the  court,  wrecking  an  outhouse  and  killing  a  man. 
Our  chauffeur  told  us  that  he  was  in  our  car  when 
he  heard  the  shell  coming.  He  didn't  know  how  it 
happened,  but  when  it  exploded  he  was  under  the 
car.  Sand-bags  were  being  piled  in  the  farmhouse 
windows  that  were  wide  open  when  we  left. 

When  we  finally  departed  quite  late  in  the  eve- 
ning, the  colonel's  last  words  to  us  were  specific: 
"Beat  it  lilve  hell !"    And  we  did. 

We  spent  a  few  days  more  sketching  In  this  Bel- 
leau  sector,  one  of  them  with  another  battalion  of 
the  same  regiment  that  had  taken  part  in  the  fight 
but  was  now  in  reserve.  Then,  as  there  seemed 
little  prospect  of  any  immediate  new  activity,  we 
returned  to  our  station  at  Neufchateau. 

[79] 


n 

ALONG  THE  MARNE  AND  UP  TO 
FISMES 

ABOUT  a  month  later,  that  is,  on  July  15, 
the  Germans  dehvered  their  last  desperate 
blow.  This  time,  however,  it  fell  against 
a  solid  wall.  At  only  one  important  point  did  that 
wall  break.  The  French,  sorely  pressed,  yielded 
along  the  Marne  from  Jaulgonne  to  Chatillon,  and 
the  Germans,  crossing  the  river,  threatened  to  pour 
up  the  Surmelin  Valley  and  continue  their  march 
toward  Montmirail  and  Paris. 

But  a  thorn  stuck  into  their  side.  Four  regiments 
of  Americans  belonging  to  the  Third  Division  still 
stood  firm  along  the  river,  stretching  from  Chateau- 
Thierry  nearly  to  Jaulgonne,  spoiling  their  plan  and 
impeding  their  advance. 

Then,  on  the  18th,  Marshal  Foch  delivered  his 
smashing  counter-stroke,  and   the  German   retreat 

[80] 


ALONG  THE  MARNE  AND  UP  TO  FISMES 


Sketch-map  of  the  Ch&teau-Thierry  region 


began — a  retreat  that  was  not  to  stop  until  the  war 
ended.  Each  day  thereafter  shortened  the  depth 
of  the  Chateau-Thierry  pocket,  until,  by  the  27th 

[81] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

of  July,  its  southernmost  edge  lay  in  front  of  Fere- 
en-Tardenois,  where,  along  the  heights  that  dominate 
the  Ourcq,  the  Germans  tried  desperately  to  arrest 
the  Allied  advance  at  least  long  enough  to  permit 
their  shattered  divisions  to  retreat.  But  here  again 
their  line  was  broken,  and,  by  the  3d  of  August, 
the  pocket  was  entirely  wiped  out,  and  the  Amer- 
icans had  reached  Fismes  on  the  road  between  Sois- 
sons  and  Reims. 

A  few  days  after  this  Allied  offensive  began,  I 
again  set  out  for  the  Chateau-Thierry  region,  by 
the  same  road  that  I  had  before  taken. 

This  time,  however,  I  headed  from  Montmirail 
directly  toward  the  Marne,  descending  the  Surmelin 
Valley  that  I  have  just  mentioned.  Its  westerly 
side  lay  in  the  American  area,  and  khaki  was  the 
prevailing  color  in  the  villages,  but  across  the  valley 
I  could  see  French  regiments  moving  up,  the  bright 
July  sunlight  glittering  on  their  guns  and  bayonets 
and  on  the  long  muzzles  of  the  155s. 

As  we  entered  Crezancy,  we  found  it  crowded 
with  Americans.  It  too  was  the  first  town  that  was 
smashed  to  bits.  Shells  had  ploughed  through  its 
houses  like  knives  through  cheese.     Disembowelled, 

[82] 


ALONG  THE  MARNE  AND  UP  TO  FISMES 

their  walls  stood  tottering.  Their  red  tiles,  shaken 
by  terrific  concussions,  had  slid  from  the  roofs  and 
lay  in  heaps,  littering  the  streets,  leaving  only  the 
bare  beams  and  rafters,  skeleton-like,  against  the 
sky. 

The  church  was  hopelessly  shattered  and  our  men 
were  eating  their  "slum"  in  its  battered  pews. 
Across  the  street  a  Red  Cross  Ambulance  was  estab- 
lished, and  a  large  house  that  our  men  designated 
as  "The  Chateau"  was  being  used  as  the  head- 
quarters of  the  Thirty-Eighth  Infantry. 

Here  we  stopped  for  lunch,  and  it  was  lucky  for 
us  that  we  did  so. 

I  found  myself  placed  next  to  the  colonel,  Ulysses 
McAlexander,  a  "regular,"  now  promoted  to  a 
generalship.  I  began  to  ask  him  about  the  battles 
that  had  just  taken  place  and  he,  in  answer,  began 
to  tell  me  what  his  regiment  had  done  on  the  two 
first  crucial  days  of  the  German  push.  I  was,  I 
think,  the  first  outsider  he  had  talked  to  since  those 
stirring  days,  and  he  became  quite  excited — ^as  ex- 
cited indeed  as  I  was,  for  it  was  a  thrilling  story  to 
listen  to  thus  at  first  hand. 

Briefly  this  is  what  he  told  me.     Four  American 

[83] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

regiments  (as  I  have  before  stated)  defended  the 
Mame  from  Chateau-Thierry  eastward  to  Crezancy: 
the  Fourth,  Seventh,  Thirtieth,  and  his  regiment, 
the  Thirty-Eighth,  which  held  the  right  of  our  Hne 
with  the  French  adjoining.  The  main-hne  tracks 
of  the  railway  from  Paris  to  Metz  and  Strasbourg 
run  along  the  south  bank  of  the  Marne,  and  he  was 
advised  to  use  their  embankment  as  his  principal 
line  of  defense.  This  he  did,  but  he  also  decided 
to  place  men  all  along  the  river-bank  itself  in  rifle- 
pits  dug  among  the  reeds,  and  never  to  let  the  Ger- 
mans even  set  foot  on  his  side  of  the  river.  He 
inquired  of  the  French  adjoining  about  his  right 
flank,  and  was  assured  that  it  was  strongly  defended 
and  perfectly  safe.  But  here  again  he  determined 
to  take  no  chances,  so  had  trenches  dug  en  echelon 
up  the  side  of  a  hill  that  commanded  a  wide  field 
of  fire  toward  the  French. 

**I  don't  know  what  they  thought  of  me,"  he 
said,  "but  I  never  asked." 

When  the  Germans  delivered  their  terrific  blow, 
his  men  along  the  river  stood  firm  in  their  rifle-pits 
and  prevented  a  landing.  WTien  the  French  fell 
back  upon  his  right,  his  trenches  on  the  hill  became 

[84] 


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■  — 

ALONG  THE  MARNE  AND  UP  TO  FISMES 

of  paramount  importance  and  enabled  him  success- 
fully to  defend  his  exposed  flank,  so  that  his  regi- 
ment stuck  like  a  wedge  out  into  the  enemy  lines, 
to  their  eternal  discomfiture. 

To  illustrate  his  story  better,  he  left  the  table 
and  returned  with  some  maps  and  photographs  in 
his  hand.  Among  the  maps  was  one  taken  from  a 
captured  German  ofiicer  showing  the  plan  of  their 
main  attack.  All  the  arrows  that  marked  the  line 
of  their  intended  advance  converged  toward  a  bend 
of  the  river  between  Mezy  and  Jaulgonne  with  Cre- 
zancy  as  its  centre,  for  Crezancy  lies  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Surmelin  Valley,  up  which  they  were  to  ad- 
vance. 

And  it  was  the  wedge  of  the  Thirty-Eighth  In- 
fantry that  stopped  their  advance.  The  air-photos 
clearly  corroborated  this,  for  they  showed  the  Ger- 
man tracks  down  to  the  north  bank  of  the  river, 
and  on  the  south  bank  where  a  Landwehr  regiment 
succeeded  in  crossing  opposite  the  Thirtieth,  and 
where  other  units  crossed  in  to  the  area  occupied 
by  the  French.  But  no  tracks  could  be  seen  on  the 
south  bank  in  front  of  Crezancy. 

When  we  had  finished  lunch,  the  colonel  asked: 

[  85  ] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

"What  are  you  doing  this  afternoon?" 
"Nothing,"  I  rephed,  "except  my  sketching." 
"Do  you  want  to  go  over  the  field  with  me?"  he 
inquired — and  you  can  guess  my  reply. 

So  he  called  his  orderly,  picked  up  his  stout  cane 
with  a  Prussian  oflScer's  black-and-silver  sabre-knot 
twisted  round  it,  and  we  set  off.  First  we  proceeded 
to  the  eastward  past  Moulin  s  and  as  far  as  a  hill 
back  of  Varennes.  Here  he  turned  off  the  road  and 
led  us  off  at  a  clipping  pace  through  the  wheat-fields 
toward  the  Moulin  Ruine  that  had  been  his  P.  C. 

And  there,  on  the  lower  slopes  of  this  hill,  he 
showed  us  the  trenches  he  had  dug.  Khaki  caps 
and  coats  and  heaps  of  empty  cartridges  lay  in  them. 
Their  field  of  fire  toward  the  river  was  wide  and 
open.  Some  of  the  dead  had  already  been  buried 
but  many  had  not,  and  all  sorts  of  things  lay  in  the 
tall  ripe  wheat.  The  July  sun  was  ardent  and  there 
was  a  sickening  odor  in  the  air. 

As  we  walked  about,  the  colonel,  with  his  cane, 
raised  the  fallen  wheat  enough  to  show  the  direction 
in  which  it  lay,  trampled  one  way  as  the  Boches 
advanced  and  in  the  opposite  direction  as  they  fell 
back  before  his  murderous  fire. 

[86] 


ALONG  THE  MARNE  AND  UP  TO  FISMES 

Next  he  led  us  down  across  the  railroad  embank- 
ment to  the  Marne — ^here  an  open  quiet-running 
river,  perhaps  thirty  yards  wide — ^and  showed  us  the 
rifle-pits  dug  along  its  bank.  Grenades  lay  about  in 
quantities,  mingled  with  American  equipment,  but 
nothing  Boche. 

There  were  new  graves  here  and  there,  and  before 
one  of  these  the  colonel  stopped  and  raised  his  hand 
to  his  cap  in  salute. 

*'Do  you  know  who  lies  here.^"  he  asked.  "No? 
Corporal  O'Connor.  Corporal  O'Connor  hid  himself 
here  in  the  reeds  and  waited  until  the  first  boat- 
load of  Germans — ^men  of  the  famous  Sixth  Grena- 
diers— ^had  almost  succeeded  in  getting  across,  and 
the  man  in  the  bow  was  just  reaching  with  his  grap- 
pling-hook  to  catch  the  shore.  Then  he  rose  from 
his  hiding-place  and  gave  them  his  grenades  full 
in  the  face,  sinking  the  boat  and  killing  all  its  occu- 
pants.   He  also  was  killed  where  he  stood." 

This  spot  upon  the  Marne  where  the  Germans 
never  crossed  should  be  hallowed  forever  by  every 
good  American,  for  here,  to  my  mind,  was  marked 
the  turning-point  of  the  war. 

Continuing  our  walk  along  the  river,  we  reached 

[87] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

a  point  between  Mezy  and  Charteves  where  the 
Germans  did  succeed  in  getting  across  in  the  area 
occupied  by  the  Thirtieth  Infantry.  To  our  left, 
Mezy's  beautiful  old  Norman  church-tower  still 
reared  itself  sadly  against  the  sky,  surrounded  by 
the  shattered  remnants  of  its  parishioners'  homes. 
Across  the  river  Charteves'  church  lay  in  ruins,  only 
a  fragment  of  its  tower  pointing  like  a  thin  finger 
toward  heaven,  calling  for  vengeance. 

The  golden  wheat-fields  of  the  Ile-de-France  and 
its  rolling  hill-slopes  covered  with  gardens  and 
orchards,  made,  by  contrast,  these  scenes  of  desola- 
tion the  more  poignant.  To  the  north  the  rumble 
of  the  cannonade  sounded  like  the  constant  roll  of 
drums. 

We  left  the  river  and  turned  back  through  fields 
strewn  thick  with  Boche  equipment.  The  ditches 
were  filled  with  debris  and  with  objects  that  stank 
of  clotted  blood.  I  picked  up  a  helmet  and  found 
it  full  of  matted  dark  hair.  After  that  I  didn't  care 
to  investigate  nor  look  for  souvenirs.  All  the  Ger- 
mans that  got  across  were  either  killed  or  taken 
prisoner. 

We  had  now  completed  our  tour  of  Colonel  Mc- 

[88] 


ALONG  THE  MARNE  AND  UP  TO  FISMES 

Alexander's  sector,  so  started  back  toward  Crezancy, 
passing  on  the  way  through  what  had  once  been 
the  pretty  Httle  village  of  Fossoy.  Here  we  stopped 
for  a  moment  to  look  at  the  church — a  sturdy  old 
Romanesque  edifice — and  the  graveyard  that  ad- 
joined it,  a  graveyard  that  had  been  literally  dis- 
embowelled. Its  graves  gaped  wide  open;  its  crosses 
lay  prone  upon  the  ground,  and  in  its  midst,  cause 
of  most  of  the  wreckage,  a  huge  air-bomb  had  ex- 
ploded, smashing  in  the  side  of  the  church  and 
digging  a  vast  crater,  thirty  feet  deep,  upon  whose 
edge  lay  poised  a  fragment  of  a  marble  headstone 
showing  only  these  two  ironic  words  printed  upon 
it:  "Regrets  Eternels." 

As  we  passed  through  the  ruins  of  what  had  been 
the  village  place,  the  colonel  drew  our  attention  to 
an  object  lying  under  a  cart,  hidden  away  so  that 
nothing  might  hit  against  it — an  enormous  air-tor- 
pedo, the  largest  I  have  ever  seen,  that  had  not  ex- 
ploded. *' Don't  you  want  to  take  it  along  as  a 
souvenir.?"  he  asked  smilingly,  and  we  as  smilingly 
declined. 

Two  days  later,  we  came  back  to  this  same  place 
to   sketch   and   stopped   our   motor  near   the   cart. 

[89] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

Looking  under  it,  we  noticed  that  the  "dud"  was 
gone.  Then  a  Frenchman,  a  sergeant  of  engineers, 
came  rushing  toward  us,  wildly  waving  his  arms 
above  his  head  and  shouting:  "' Allez-vous  en;  allez- 
vous  en  /"  Not  realizing  what  he  meant,  we  hesi- 
tated a  moment  and  he  fairly  yelled,  "Boum,  bourn, 
boum  ! "  flinging  his  arms  into  the  air  like  a  madman, 
then  fleeing  toward  an  abri. 

Then  we  understood  and  shot  the  car  ahead  and 
in  under  the  shelter  of  a  ruined  hangar.  No  sooner 
had  we  done  so  than  a  terrific  explosion  rent  the 
air  and  fairly  shook  the  earth.  Broken  walls  tottered 
and  fell  in  and  a  great  mass  of  dirt  shot  upward  as 
if  vomited  from  the  crater  of  some  hidden  volcano, 
falling  again  mingled  with  a  rain  of  shell  fragments 
and  shrapnel.  The  famous  "dud"  had  exploded. 
Its  time-fuse  had  been  set  by  the  engineers  at  9.35, 
and  at  9.33  we  had  stopped  our  motor  within  fifty 
feet  of  where  it  lay  buried  in  a  shell  crater ! 

I  spent  several  days  sketching  along  the  Marne, 
crossing  to  the  north  bank  by  a  pontoon  bridge 
"made  in  Germany,"  as  it  was  labelled,  constructed 
by  one  of  our  engineer  units  with  material  captured 
from  the  Boches.     I  visited  one  by  one  the  chain 

[90] 


Chateau-Thierry  from  the  Terraee  of  the  Old  Chateau 
This  drawing  was  made  a  few  days  after  the  Germans  had  evacuated  the  city 


ALONG  THE  MARNE  AND  UP  TO  FISMES 

of  shattered  villages  along  the  river  that  lay  within 
the  range  of  our  artillery:  Jaulgonne,  Mont  St. 
Pere,  Blesmes,  Glands — razed  to  the  ground,  every 
one  of  them,  their  buildings  so  formless  that,  in  the 
dazzling  sunlight,  they  resembled  only  the  reefs  of 
some  coral  islands — a  *'joli  pays,^^  as  one  decrepit 
old  peasant  bitterly  remarked  to  me. 

For,  now  that  the  tide  of  battle  had  been  pushed 
back  even  a  little,  a  few  poor  old  people,  having 
nowhere  else  to  go,  were  already  wandering  back, 
returning  to  seek  their  ruined  homes,  searching 
among  the  debris  for  their  scattered  possessions, 
lamenting  the  disappearance  of  their  household 
utensils,  pointing  shudderingly  at  mattresses  soaked 
with  blood.  All  was  chaos  and  confusion  where 
only  a  few  days  before  had  been  order  and  con- 
tent. 

Chateau-Thierry  itself  was  by  no  means  hope- 
lessly ruined;  had,  in  fact,  only  suffered  in  spots. 
Many  of  its  streets  were  quite  intact.  Others  were 
but  a  mass  of  debris.  The  Church  of  St.  Crepin 
was  filled  with  plunder,  collected  by  the  Germans, 
ready  to  be  taken  but  abandoned  at  the  last  minute 
in  the  hurry  of  their  departure. 

[91] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

The  handsome  stone  bridge  across  the  Marne 
had  been  dynamited  and  the  heavy  masonry  of  two 
of  its  arches  lay  blocking  the  channel,  but  already 
blue-coated  engineers  were  swarming  over  it  like 
ants  restoring  a  trampled  ant-hill.  Long,  serpent- 
like columns  of  khaki-clad  troops  crawled  over  the 
two  pontoons  to  the  eastward  and  clattered  along 
the  stone-paved  quays  into  the  city  on  their  way 
northward  to  reinforce  the  attack. 

I  cHmbed  to  the  site  of  the  old  chateau  that 
Charles  Martel,  according  to  tradition,  built  in  the 
eighth  century  for  good  King  Thierry.  What  scenes 
its  gray  old  walls  had  witnessed !  Taken  by  the 
English  in  the  thirteenth  century,  retaken  by  Charles 
the  Fifth  a  half  century  later,  besieged  and  assaulted 
again  and  again,  its  ruins  saw  the  fierce  combats 
of  1814,  when  the  irresistible  soldiers  of  the  Great 
Napoleon  drove  off  the  Prussians  and  Russians  who 
left  twelve  hundred  dead  upon  the  ground  and 
eighteen  hundred  prisoners  in  the  hands  of  the  vic- 
tors. But  what  imaginative  soothsayer  would  have 
dared  to  prophesy  that  the  next  time  a  battle  was 
waged  beneath  its  venerable  walls  it  would  be  the 
youth  of  far  America  that  would  again   rout   the 

[92] 


ALONG  THE  MARNE  AND  UP  TO  FISMES 

Hun  and  make  the  name  of  Chateau-Thierry  forever 
glorious  in  the  annals  of  American  history ! 

There  it  lay  beneath  me,  the  silent  city,  utterly 
deserted  save  for  the  long  columns  of  khaki-clad 
troops  marching  ceaselessly  along  the  river.  The 
belfry  of  St.  Bothan  and  the  sturdy  tower  of  St. 
Crepin  still  rose  intact  above  the  broken  roof-tops, 
while,  near  at  hand,  the  lantern  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville 
cut  its  battered  silhouette  against  the  sky.  A  great 
square  of  houses  that  bordered  the  main  street, 
gutted  by  air-bombs,  were  now  mere  empty  shells, 
scorched  and  blackened  by  fire.  Beyond  the  river, 
the  soft  green  slopes  of  the  Marne  hills,  covered 
with  woods  and  wheat-fields  and  orchards,  seemed, 
by  contrast,  a  mockery  to  the  tragedy  of  the  shat- 
tered city. 

Off  toward  the  right  rose  the  slopes  of  Hill  204, 
that  redoubtable  stronghold  of  the  enemy,  his  citadel 
from  which  he  commanded  a  view  of  all  the  Marne 
Valley.  Later  on,  I  spent  an  afternoon  wandering 
through  its  defenses.  Rifle-pits  and  shelters,  dug- 
outs and  P.  C.'s,  excavated  deep  into  the  sand  under 
gigantic  boulders,  honeycombed  the  ground  under 
its  rounded  brow,  which  was  ravaged  and  torn  by 

[93] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

shell-holes  and  completely  denuded  of  its  woods, 
only  a  few  blackened  stumps  standing  like  the  last 
few  hairs  on  a  bald  head. 

The  Boches  had  just  left  and  the  pits  were  full 
of  debris:  bedding  and  mattresses  stolen  from  the 
ruined  villages  near  by,  overcoats  and  field-gray 
uniforms,  Mauser  rifles,  bayonets,  heaps  of  "potato- 
mashers"  (as  our  boys  call  the  Boche  hand-grenades) 
mixed  with  cigarette  boxes,  bits  of  eatables,  and  the 
feldpostbriefs  so  plentifully  supplied  to  the  German 
army — all  the  rubbish,  in  fact,  of  a  hastily  aban- 
doned camp. 

From  the  crest  of  the  hill,  where  the  Paris  road 
turns  to  descend  the  other  side,  I  could  look  down 
into  the  village  of  Vaux,  now,  alas,  but  a  heap  of 
ruins  bordering  the  highway. 

When  our  gallant  Marines  had  finally  cleared 
the  enemy  from  Belleau  Wood,  they  straightened 
out  their  line  through  Bouresches  and,  by  the  end 
of  June,  prepared  to  take  Vaux.  Not  a  house  in 
the  town  escaped  the  withering  artillery-fire  that 
preceded  the  attack.  Every  German  shelter  in  the 
town  was  sought  out  and  peppered,  and  when  the 
infantry  rushed  it  on  July  1,  they  even  went  beyond 

[94] 


3      ^    r^ 


fi*'"*^^^*! 


ALONG  THE  MARNE  AND  UP  TO  FISMES 

and  gained  a  foothold  on  the  lower  slopes  of  Hill 
204. 

I  wanted  to  appreciate  the  pleasant  sensation 
of  even  this  small  advance,  so  decided  to  make  a 
detour,  going  round  by  Nogent  I'Artaud,  so  as  to 
reach  the  Paris  road  again  at  a  point  near  Maison 
Blanche,  where  Colonel  Neville  had  had  his  head- 
quarters when  I  first  was  in  Belleau  Wood.  His 
house  now  stood  empty  and  the  roads  and  woods 
about  it  were  deserted.  We  could  motor  on  beyond 
without  even  hearing  the  whistle  of  a  shell,  and  in- 
stead of  crawling  up  through  that  narrow  ravine, 
could  take  the  open  road  straight  into  Lucy-le- 
Bocage  and  out  over  the  top  of  the  culvert  where 
the  dressing-station  had  been,  to  the  fields  beyond 
Belleau  Wood. 

Here  too  all  was  quiet  and  deserted.  But  among 
the  gray  boulders  where  the  raachine-guns  had  been, 
I  found  fresh  copies  of  the  Boston  Transcript  and  the 
Springfield  Republican  that  told  me  where  the  New 
Englanders  of  the  Twenty-Sixth  had  relieved  the 
Marines  of  the  Second. 

The  Twenty-Sixth  was  put  in  line  here  early  in 
July,  and  lay  in  its  hastily  dug  trenches  along  the 

[95] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

east  front  of  the  wood,  harassed  night  and  day,  until 
the  great  AUied  offensive  opened  on  the  18th. 
Then,  in  Haison  with  the  French  on  its  left,  it  went 
over  the  top. 

Torcy  and  Belleau  were  taken  In  the  first  rush, 
and  our  men  in  their  eagerness  even  charged  up 
the  slopes  of  Hill  193  beyond,  but  had  to  be  recalled 
to  await  liaison  with  the  troops  on  their  left.  A 
day  or  two  later  they  were  at  it  again  and  this  time 
pushed  over  the  hills  of  the  Marne,  on  to  the  plateau 
of  the  Orxois  and  to  the  slopes  that  descend  to  the 
Ourcq. 

They  left  their  traces  along  their  path  of  victory. 
The  fields  in  front  of  Belleau  Wood  were  dotted 
with  lonely  graves — sometimes  one,  sometimes 
three  together,  sometimes  a  group  of  six.  A  rude 
wooden  cross  marked  each  grave,  with  a  musket 
stuck  into  the  ground  beside  it  and  a  flat  khaki- 
colored  helmet  hung  upon  it. 

Of  the  little  chain  of  villages,  Bouresches  had 
suffered  most.  Nothing  but  ruins  surrounded  its 
place,  in  whose  centre  rose  a  tree,  an  oak  centuries 
old,  whose  vast  wide-spreading  leafy  arms  had  long 
shaded   the   picturesque   square.      Now   it   stood   a 

[96] 


o  5 


c    i 


ALONG  THE  MARNE  AND  UP  TO  FISMES 

gaunt  skeleton,  shot  to  pieces,  its  branches  lopped 
off,  amputated  one  by  one,  its  trunk  riddled  and 
pitted  and  peppered  by  bullets  and  shrapnel. 

As  I  finished  a  drawing  of  it,  it  dawned  upon  me 
that  it  was  noon  and  that  I  had  only  had  a  cup  of 
coffee  and  a  bit  of  bread  for  breakfast  very  early 
in  the  morning.  There  were  a  few  French  soldiers 
in  the  village  and  I  hailed  a  sergeant  and  asked  if 
he  knew  where  I  could  get  something  to  eat.  He 
led  me  to  a  house  where  six  officers  were  gathered 
round  a  table.  It  was  the  best  room  they  could 
find.  Its  four  walls  were  standing  but  a  shell  had 
torn  a  big  hole  in  the  ceiling,  a  hole  that  had  been 
covered  with  a  tarpaulin  to  keep  the  rain  out.  No 
glass  in  the  windows,  of  course,  and  a  door  that  could 
not  close.  The  table  was  the  ordinary  '*  dining-room 
table"  of  the  yetite  bourgeoisie,  lengthened  with  its 
leaves,  and  covered  with  a  red-and-white  checked 
oilcloth. 

The  dishes  were  gathered  from  the  wreckage  of  a 
dozen  china-closets,  but  carefully  and  symmetrically 
ranged  along  the  table,  to  which  two  vases  of  field 
flowers  added  an  almost  festive  note.  The  food 
was  passed  by  an  ordonnance,  a  hirsute  old  terri- 

[97] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

torlal  of  fierce  appearance  but  very  gentle  manner 
who  performed  his  service  quietly  and  well. 

And  as  I  shared  this  lengthy  luncheon  and  lis- 
tened to  the  unceasing  conversation,  I  could  not 
help  thinking  of  the  many  American  messes  that  I 
had  attended,  where  everything  was  put  upon  the 
table  at  once  and  the  men  despatched  their  hearty 
meal  in  a  few  minutes. 

Even  the  French  soldiers  made  a  little  function 
of  their  meals  and  tried  to  rest  their  weary  bodies 
and  tired  nerves  at  table,  finding,  in  the  humblest 
villages,  some  outhouse  or  ruin  where  they  could 
sit  down  in  quiet  to  eat  their  ^'^soupe.'^  Our  boys — 
God  bless  them — lined  up  before  the  field-kitchens, 
with  their  mess-kits  in  one  hand  and  their  canteen 
cup  in  the  other,  received  meat  and  vegetables — 
their  "slum" — in  the  mess-tin  and  a  half  pint  of 
black  coffee  in  the  cup;  then  went  off  like  healthy 
young  animals  into  a  corner  to  devour  their  food 
in  silence,  growling  if  any  one  came  near  to  disturb 
them !  .  .  . 

Before  we  went  up  with  the  troops  again,  we 
decided   to  have  a  good   night's  rest,  get  off  our 

[98] 


^     r-    > 


ALONG  THE  MARNE  AND  UP  TO  FISMES 

clothes,  and  wash  up  a  bit  in  La  Ferte-sous-Jouarre, 
where  we  knew  of  a  decent  hotel,  the  nearest  one 
to  the  present  front.  We  reached  it  late  in  the  after- 
noon and  succeeded  in  getting  a  room — the  last 
one  vacant  in  the  house — up  under  the  mansard. 
Soon  after  dinner,  we  retired  and  were  half  undressed 
when  I  heard  some  one  in  the  street  saying:  "There's 
a  light  up  there."  Going  to  the  window  I  saw  two 
people  looking  up  and  making  signs.  Then  the  dull 
drone  of  an  aeroplane — the  special  drone  of  a  Boche 
motor — reached  my  ears  and  the  distant  explosion 
of  a  bomb  brought  us  to  our  senses.  We  blew  out 
the  candle  and  stood  by  the  window. 

Nearer  and  nearer  came  the  buzzing  motors,  so 
near  indeed  that,  even  in  the  darkness,  we  felt  we 
could  see  big  black  objects  moving  against  the  stars, 
and  bang,  bang,  bang  went  the  bombs  as  they  began 
to  land  in  the  town  about  us.  Should  we  retreat 
ignominiously  to  the  cellar  .f*  All  the  house  was 
dark  and  still  and  we  didn't  know  where  the  cellar 
was. 

Again  and  again  the  great  black  bombing  planes 
circled  over  the  city.  Again  and  again  the  bombs 
fell  and  their  explosions  rent  the  air,  mingled  with 

[99] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

the  sound  of  broken  glass  and  the  crash  of  crumbling 
walls.  Then  the  droning  grew  more  distant,  then 
ceased  entirely,  and  a  feeling  of  deep  thankfulness 
came  with  the  silence  of  the  night.  Next  morning 
we  learned  that  they  had  hit  nineteen  of  our  men, 
and  that  in  certain  streets  near  Corps  Headquarters 
not  a  pane  of  glass  remained.  Such  was  our  restful 
night  in  La  Ferte  ! 

We  lingered  along  the  road  on  our  way  up  to  the 
front  next  day.  For,  after  we  had  crossed  the  Marne, 
we  saw  our  first  big  piles  of  German  ammunition 
cased  in  wicker-work;  we  saw  their  cantonments  for 
man  and  beast,  their  abris  and  kommandanturs  that 
had  been  occupied  but  a  day  or  two  before,  and 
their  signs  marked  every  road. 

So  it  was  already  getting  late  when  we  reached 
the  crossroads  at  Courmont,  and  overtook  our  vic- 
torious army  on  its  way  up  north.  Here  were  the 
guns,  the  artillerymen  bestriding  their  horses  like 
centaurs,  draped  in  their  slickers  and  casqued  with 
the  flat  helmet  of  the  soldiers  of  Cyrus — giving  a 
wonderful  impression  of  youthful  calm  and  manly 
vigor.  Here  were  the  "doughboys"  plodding  dog- 
gedly along  after  their  days  of  hardship  and  their 

[100] 


ALONG  THE  MARNE  AND  UP  TO  FISMES 

sleepless  nights,  column  after  column  of  them  with 
their  packs  upon  their  backs  and  splashed  to  the 
hips  with  mud,  but  happy  because  they  were  moving 
and  the  Boche  was  *'on  the  run." 

Just  as  darkness  settled  down,  we  groped  our 
way  into  Cierges,  where  we  found  a  Division  Head- 
quarters established  in  a  more  or  less  ruined  villa 
just  outside  the  village.  It  proved  to  be  the  Thirty- 
Second,  the  division  that  I  had  visited  down  in  Ger- 
man Alsace  some  months  before,  and  in  the  busy 
offices  I  found  several  of  my  old  acquaintances. 

**A  billet?    Sure;   come  along." 

And  they  led  us  over  to  the  battered  village  and 
to  the  remnant  of  a  house  in  which  several  of  them 
slept.  There  they  gave  us  an  empty  room,  window- 
less,  doorless,  with  a  shattered  ceiling  that,  every 
time  a  big  truck  went  rumbling  by,  shook  down 
upon  our  heads.  We  placed  a  door  or  two  on  the 
stone  floor  to  sleep  upon  and  were  fixed  for  the  next 
few  days. 

Then  we  listened  to  stories  of  what  the  Thirty- 
Second  had  been  doing. 

It  had,  it  seemed,  relieved  the  Third  Division 
that  had  fought  its  way  north  from   the  Marne 

[  101  ] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

through  Charteves  and  Jaulgonne  as  far  as  Cour- 
mont.  On  the  30th  of  July  the  Thirty-Second  was 
in  the  Grimpette  Woods  overlooking  Cierges.  After 
two  days  of  the  bitterest  fighting,  it  drove  a  wedge 
through  the  main  German  positions  to  the  north 
of  the  town  and  by  midnight  of  the  2d  of  August 
had  attained  Dravegny,  five  miles  farther  to  the 
north.  On  the  following  day,  it  made  another  big 
push  and  by  four  o'clock  its  patrols  looked  down 
into  Fismes,  the  Allies'  main  objective  on  the  Vesle. 

This  certainly  was  remarkable  work  for  a  new 
division.  The  men  were  all  proud  of  it  and  well 
they  might  be,  for  advances  of  from  seven  to  eight 
kilometres  a  day  were  rare  accomplishments  in  those 
days. 

Next  morning  General  Haan  took  me  out  on  a 
hill  behind  headquarters  to  show  me  the  terrain 
about  Cierges.  To  the  southward,  he  pointed  out 
the  Grimpette  Woods  where  his  infantry  lay  con- 
cealed before  the  attack.  Cierges  lies  in  a  pronounced 
hollow — a  mere  village  dominated  by  a  fine  old 
church-tower.  His  troops  had  charged  from  the 
woods  at  dawn  across  the  open  fields,  and  had  suc- 
ceeded in  taking  the  town  only  to  be  gassed  out  of 

[102] 


The  Church,  Cierges 

Cierges  was  taken  by  troops  of  the  Thirty-Second  Division  in  the  battles  along  the  Ourcq. 
A  Red  Ooss  flag  was  hanging  from  this  steeple  with  a  machine- 
gun  placed  in  the  windows  beside  it 


ALONG  THE  MARNE  AND  UP  TO  FISMES 

it  again,  for  the  gas  was  unbearable  down  in  that 
pocket. 

So,  seeking  whatever  cover  they  could  find,  they 
prepared  for  the  more  serious  work  of  capturing 
the  hill  that  lay  to  the  north  of  the  town — Hill  230. 
On  top  of  this  eminence,  the  general  pointed  out  a 
farm  called  Bellevue  and  a  long  line  of  trees  that, 
he  told  me,  screened  some  quarries  that  had  been 
made  into  veritable  fortresses  studded  thick  with 
machine-gun  nests. 

Two  or  three  footpaths  led  up  this  hill,  bordered 
with  brambles  and  shrubbery.  Up  these  paths  our 
men  had  crawled  before  dawn,  when,  at  the  sound 
of  the  whistle,  they  rose  and  charged  up  and  over 
the  hill.  Hand-to-hand  fights  in  the  quarries;  fierce 
combats  round  the  farm.  The  machine-guns  had 
to  be  taken  one  by  one,  but  finally  the  last  of  these 
hornets'  nests  was  silenced  and  our  men  moved  on 
over  the  crest  of  the  hill  and  dug  in  before  Reddy 
Farm,  another  important  stronghold  overlooking 
a  vast  expanse  of  country  to  the  northward  as  far 
as  the  valley  of  the  Vesle. 

Later  in  the  day,  I  walked  up  to  Bellevue  and 
the  quarries.     The  farm  was  shot  to  pieces;    the 

[103] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

quarries  filled  with  kits  and  knapsacks,  with  coats 
and  rifles  and  strings  of  empty  cartridges.  The 
dead  still  lay  unburied  in  the  fierce  August  sunlight. 

Reddy  Farm  was  taken  early  in  the  morning  of 
August  1.  It  had  been  an  important  German  head- 
quarters, the  residence  of  Prince  Eitel  Frederick. 
When  I  saw  it,  its  walls  were  peppered  with  shrapnel 
and  breached  with  shell-holes,  and  it  had  been  con- 
verted into  a  field-hospital.  But  upon  the  door  of 
the  operating-room  I  still  could  discern,  written  in 
chalk:   "Abt.  1.  Kasino,  General  Stab." 

The  view  northward  from  Reddy  Farm  is,  as  I 
have  said,  almost  without  limit.  Hill  after  hill 
stretches  off  toward  the  valley  of  the  Vesle,  open, 
bare,  dotted  only  here  and  there  with  patches  of 
woods  in  the  hollows. 

As  I  went  farther  north,  I  found,  on  one  of  these 
open  slopes,  not  far  from  the  village  of  Chamery, 
the  grave  of  Quentin  Roosevelt.  He  was  buried 
by  the  Germans  where  he  fell,  in  a  lonely  spot  marked 
from  afar  by  a  single  tall  poplar,  a  conspicuous 
landmark.  Parts  of  his  aeroplane  lay  upon  his  grave 
and  a  few  flowers  gathered  from  the  fields  had  also 
been  placed  upon  it  by  our  soldiers. 

[  104  ] 


.^j^lBk^ 


»•  5, 


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ii'.' 


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2  "5 


ALONG  THE  MARNE  AND  UP  TO  FISMES 

The  German  retreat  had  been  so  rapid  from  here 
on  that  the  villages  had  suffered  but  little.  Cohan 
and  Dravegny  were  quite  intact.  From  an  old 
monastery  perched  on  a  hilltop  farther  north  we 
watched  the  artillery  at  work.  On  the  hills  near 
us,  the  shells  were  bursting,  the  puffs  of  smoke  seem- 
ing to  issue  from  the  ground  rather  than  strike  into 
it.  Our  guns,  hidden  in  woods  in  the  hollows,  re- 
plied, but  never  a  wreath  of  smoke  revealed  their 
presence.  Once  in  a  while,  for  the  fraction  of  a 
second,  the  eye  could  detect  a  tongue  of  flame  among 
the  leafage.  And  in  the  distance,  we  could  plainly 
see  our  shells  dropping  into  "Bocheland"  across 
the  River  Vesle. 

The  Americans  had  reached  the  Vesle  on  August 
5,  after  two  days  of  desperate  fighting  for  the  town 
of  Fismes,  with  whose  capture  the  Thirty-Second 
had  fittingly  crowned  its  sensational  and  spectacular 
advance.  No  wonder  that  General  Haan  was  proud 
of  his  division !  "At  the  time  of  the  battles  on  the 
Marne,"  he  said  to  me  with  his  usual  quiet  modesty, 
*'I  told  General  Pershing  that,  while  my  division 
was  not,  perhaps,  all  that  I  might  wish  it  to  be,  I 
felt  sure  that,  if  he  would  give  it  a  chance,  it  would 

[105] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

give  a  good  account  of  itself  and  could  take  its  place 
in  line  for  combat  work."  The  Commander-in-Chief 
took  him  at  his  word  and  events  certainly  proved 
that  he  was  right. 

Some  of  my  readers  will,  perhaps,  think  that  I 
have  dwelt  unduly  upon  the  deeds  of  the  Thirty- 
Second.  If  they  happen  to  be  men  of  the  Rainbows, 
they  certainly  will,  for  the  Forty-Second  also  cov- 
ered itself  with  glory  in  those  epic  fights  along  the 
Ourcq. 

The  Orxois  (or  country  of  the  Ourcq)  is  a  great 
plateau,  cut  by  numerous  deep  little  valleys,  drained 
by  tiny  water-courses,  locally  called  rus,  swift-flow- 
ing rivulets  that,  in  rainy  weather,  quickly  swell  the 
more  placid  Ourcq.  A  few  patches  of  woods,  some- 
times quite  extensive,  alternate  with  great  open 
fields  that  afford  no  shelter  whatever  to  attacking 
troops. 

It  was  across  such  fields  that  our  infantry  had 
to  advance  to  storm  the  heights  of  the  Ourcq.  And 
it  was  the  Forty-Second  that  had  the  hardest  part 
of  the  work  to  do,  it  having  just  relieved  the  Twenty- 
Sixth,  that,  depleted  by  the  severe  fighting  at  Torcy, 
in  Trugny  Wood,  and  through  the  Forest  of  Fere, 
was  in  need  of  rest  and  reorganization. 

[106] 


ALONG  THE  MARNE  AND  UP  TO  FISMES 

So  on  the  Rainbows  now  devolved  the  task  of 
taking  the  Ourcq  Valley  just  east  of  Fere-en-Tar- 
denois  as  well  as  the  heights  that  lie  to  the  north — 
a  terrible  task  indeed,  for  every  farm  in  the  vicinity 
was  a  machine-gun  nest  and  every  village  a  redoubt- 
able stronghold,  a  veritable  fortress,  to  be  won  only 
after  the  bitterest  of  hand-to-hand  conflicts.  Sergy 
changed  hands  four  times  before  our  troops  were 
finally  able  to  hold  it.  Scringes  was  taken,  held 
for  forty-eight  hours,  then  lost  one  night,  only  to 
be  retaken  again  next  morning. 

The  story  of  these  fights  along  the  Ourcq  will 
be  told  by  better  pens  than  mine — by  the  pens  of 
the  men  who  fought  them  and  who  saw  them.  But 
the  towns  themselves  when  I  beheld  them  a  few 
days  later,  still  graphically  bore  witness  to  the 
severity  of  the  fighting.  Their  streets  had  not  as 
yet  been  cleared  of  debris  nor  had  the  shell-holes 
been  filled  up.  Their  houses  were  gutted;  their 
churches  disembowelled  by  high  explosives.  A 
sickening  stench  of  rotting  horse-flesh,  of  unburied 
dead,  was  in  the  air,  augmented  by  the  heat  of  early 
August.  Flies  that  bred  by  the  million  infested 
the  air  and  stung  like  poisoned  needles;  the  clouds 
of  dust  strangled  you  on  the  roads.     Those  were 

[107] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

the  days  when  our  hospitals  were  taxed  to  their 
utmost  capacity;  when  our  doctors  and  nurses  had 
no  rest  by  day  or  night. 

Fere-en-Tardenois  bore  the  same  imprint  of  deso- 
lation as  the  vassal  villages  about  it.  A  certain 
number  of  its  inhabitants,  it  is  true,  had  remained 
hidden  in  their  cellars  during  the  bombardment, 
and  were  now  busily  engaged  in  clearing  out  their 
ruined  homes  where  such  a  thing  was  possible.  Ger- 
man prisoners,  closely  guarded,  were  put  to  work 
to  aid  them,  and  I  watched  with  a  certain  amount 
of  pleasure  one  squad  of  them  as  they  cleaned  up 
the  wrecked  Maine  that  still  bore  upon  its  front, 
in  letters  three  feet  high,  the  words :  Orts-Komman- 
dantur. 

By  the  beginning  of  August  the  Allied  line  had 
definitely  reached  the  Vesle,  and  the  Chateau- 
Thierry  pocket  was  wiped  from  the  map. 

Our  divisions,  mingled  with  the  French,  settled 
down  again  to  a  war  of  attrition,  encouraged,  some- 
what exhausted,  and  glad  to  breathe  again  after 
their  first  big  serious  offensive  effort.  So,  there 
being  little  prospect  of  any  further  action  on  this 
front,  we  returned  to  Neufchateau. 

[108] 


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-¥■    t: 


IV 
THE  TOUL  SECTOR 


THE  TOUL  SECTOR 

WHEN  writing  about  our  period  of  prep- 
aration, there  was  one  sector  occupied 
by  the  Americans  that  I  did  not  de- 
scribe, the  one  called  the  Toul  sector. 

I  omitted  it  purposely,  for  it  seemed  to  link  itself 
naturally  in  my  mind,  in  the  light  of  what  happened 
afterward,  with  the  taking  of  the  St.  Mihiel  salient. 

We  used  to  go  to  it  frequently  from  Neufchateau, 
for  it  was  the  most  accessible  as  well  as  the  most 
active  of  the  sectors  held  by  our  troops  in  the  early 
months  of  1918. 

Two  roads  led  to  it:  one  straight  and  direct  by 
way  of  Colombey-les-Belles,  the  other  via  Domremy 
and  Vaucouleurs.  The  latter  road  is  the  prettier 
and  is,  besides,  of  greater  historic  interest.  For 
Domremy,  birthplace  of  Jeanne  d'Arc,  lies  upon  it, 
only  six  miles  north  of  Neufchateau,  hidden  away 
in  a  secluded  valley,  a  sleepy  little  Lorraine  village 
that  strings  its  humble  dwellings  and  manure  piles 
along  the  highway. 

[Ill] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

The  house  in  which  Joan  was  born  stands  a  httle 
back  from  the  main  road,  from  which  it  is  fenced 
off  by  an  iron  grill.  It  is  shaded  by  pines  and  fir- 
trees  and  still  makes  quite  a  romantic  picture  with 
its  windows  en  crcdx  and  its  Gothic  niche  above  the 
door.  You  are  shown  the  room  in  which  the  maid 
slept  and  the  window  by  her  bed  through  which 
she  heard  the  voices.  Adjoining  the  house  is  the 
humble  parish  church  in  which  she  was  baptized 
and  afterward  repeated  her  fervent  prayers,  while, 
on  the  hill  above,  on  the  site  of  the  Bois  Chenu, 
rises  a  great  modern  basilica  that  offends  the  eye 
as  well  as  destroys  the  simplicity  of  the  place. 

Situated  as  it  was  upon  a  highway,  in  an  active 
sector,  Domremy  was  constantly  being  visited  by 
soldiers,  both  French  and  American;  and  I  have 
seen  (and  I  confess  that  a  lump  arose  in  my  throat 
as  I  saw  it)  French  regiments  march  by  it  at  salute — 
the  oflBcers  raising  their  swords  to  their  chins,  then 
sweeping  them  outward  at  arm's  length;  the  men 
turning  their  eyes  fixedly  upon  the  sacred  spot. 

Beyond  Joan's  natal  village,  the  road  follows  her 
footsteps  as  she  trudged  to  Vaucouleurs  to  see  the 
Sire  de  Baudricourt,  her  first  friend,  the  man  who 

[112] 


THE  TOUL  SECTOR 

gained  her  her  audience  with  the  King.  Enough 
remains  of  his  town  and  castle  on  the  hill  to  show 
that  it  must  have  been  a  typical  stronghold  of  the 
Middle  Ages  when  the  maid  first  entered  it  by  the 
Porte  de  France,  still  standing. 

Vaucouleurs  being,  in  the  spring  of  1918,  in  a 
rest  area,  its  streets  were  always  full  of  soldiers, 
usually  Senegalese  or  marsouins  or  men  of  the  famous 
Foreign  Legion  wearing  the  red  fourragere.* 

Only  a  few  miles  farther  north,  every  village  was 
alive  with  American  soldiers,  reserve  battalions 
ready  to  support  in  case  of  an  attack  and  to  relieve 
the  tired  regiments  as  they  came  out  of  the  trenches 
of  the  Toul  sector. 

Toul  itself  lies  farther  to  the  east — a  considerable 
city,  of  great  antiquity,  surrounded  by  massive 
walls  designed  by  Vauban,  above  which  rise  the 
beautiful  twin  towers  of  the  cathedral.  Its  suburbs 
are,  you  might  say,  one  vast  barracks,  for  it  and 


*  The  origin  of  the  fourragere  is,  I  think,  not  generally  known.  A  French 
regiment,  sent  into  action,  ran  away.  The  next  time  it  went  into  combat,  a 
halter  was  hung  round  each  man's  neck  with  nails  attached  so  that,  if  he  fled, 
he  could  be  hanged  at  once.  As  a  result  the  men  were  transformed  into  heroes 
and  the  rope — the  fourragere — became  a  badge  of  distinction.  It  is  now  con- 
ferred in  three  colors:  those  of  the  croix  de  guerre,  the  medaille  militaire,  and 
the  Legion  of  Honor. 

[113] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

Verdun  were  the  guardians  of  eastern  France,  her 
chief  reliance,  her  bulwarks  against  Germany,  against 
the  first  tide  of  attack,  the  base  of  the  triangle  whose 
apex  was  Metz,  Germany's  greatest  fortress. 

x\ll  the  way  from  Toul  to  Verdun  stretch  the 
Cotes  or  Hants  de  Meuse,  a  regular  succession  of 
truncated  hills  resembling  the  mesas  of  our  south- 
west, their  gentle  slopes  rising  to  flat,  platform-like 
tops  that  form  admirable  positions  for  defense. 

From  Toul  westward,  these  hills,  each  crowned 
with  a  fort,  were  held  by  the  French,  their  last  strong- 
hold being  Liouville,  that  guards  the  valley  opening 
toward  Commercy.  From  this  valley  north,  how- 
ever, unfortunately  for  us,  the  Germans,  in  their 
first  onslaught,  had  stormed  and  taken  the  Cotes 
half-way  up  to  Verdun,  from  the  formidable  Camp 
des  Romains  in  front  of  St.  Mihiel  to  the  tragic 
valley  of  Les  Eparges. 

So  that  on  all  the  western  and  southern  front  of 
the  salient,  the  Germans  held  the  heights  that  com- 
mand both  the  valley  of  the  Meuse  and  the  low- 
lands of  the  Woevre. 

The  Woevre  is  the  name  given  to  the  great  plain 
that  extends  northward  from  Toul   as  far  as   the 

[114] 


THE  TOUL  SECTOR 


METZ 


Pont  aMOVSSoN 


•rouL 


Sketch-map  of  the  St.  Mihiel  salient 


mining  districts  of  Briey  and  Longwy.  Its  soil  is 
thick  and  heavy,  holding  the  water  in  wet  weather 
so  as  to  form  a  slippery,  sticky  mud  as  well  as 

[115] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

numerous  lakes  and  ponds.  It  was  in  these  wet 
lowlands  that  our  trenches  lay,  dominated  in  all 
their  extent  by  watchful  eyes  on  top  of  Mont  Sec, 
an  isolated  mesa,  the  Germans'  main  stronghold  in 
the  sector,  an  observation-post  that  gave  them  an 
uninterrupted  view  up  and  down  our  lines.. 

From  the  marshy  plains  of  the  Woevre,  the  Cotes 
rise  gently,  cultivated  on  their  lower  slopes,  w^ith 
well-kept  vineyards  that  produce  the  esteemed  vins 
gris  de  Lorraine,  the  wines  of  Thiaucourt,  in  par- 
ticular holding  an  honorable  place  among  the  grands 
crus  of  France. 

It  was  on  such  a  hill  covered  with  just  such  vine- 
yards, about  midway  between  Toul  and  St.  Mihiel, 
that  our  Division  Headquarters  were  established 
in  a  village  called  Boucq.  I  shall  never  forget  my 
first  impression  of  it.  On  the  way  out  from  Toul, 
I  had  been  watching  the  "sausages"  that  hung  in- 
tent over  the  opposing  lines  and  the  bursts  of  shrapnel 
that  broke  in  the  air,  and  had  been  listening  to  the 
booming  of  the  big  guns  up  toward  Verdun.  Then, 
as  we  turned  up  the  hill  toward  Boucq,  it  seemed 
strange,  indeed,  to  see  the  peasants  working  in  their 
vineyards,  cutting,  pruning,  digging,  as  if  they  were 

[116] 


THE  TOUL  SECTOR 

a  hundred  miles  or  more  from  any  scene  of  combat. 

Headquarters  were  in  an  old  chateau,  built  in 
the  fifteenth  century,  but  partially  remodelled  at 
some  much  later  period.  Windows  of  larger  dimen- 
sions had  been  opened  into  its  massive  curtain-walls 
and  a  few  outhouses  had  been  added,  but,  with  its 
battlements  and  corner  turrets,  its  low  Gothic  door- 
way defended  by  machicoulis  above,  and  its  high- 
pitched  roofs,  the  Chateau  de  Boucq  still  preserved 
all  the  essential  characteristics  of  a  feudal  castle. 

We  found  Major-General  Edwards,  the  com- 
mander of  the  Twenty-Sixth  Division  that  for  so 
long  held  this  sector,  in  the  main  salon  of  the  ground 
floor — a  very  handsome  Louis  XV  apartment,  done 
in  white-and-gold,  that  opened  directly  on  the  gar- 
den. I  have  the  distinct  impression  that  the  general 
disliked  being  found  in  such  luxurious  surroundings, 
for  he  constantly  insisted  on  referring  to  more  active 
portions  of  the  sector:  Dead  Man's  Curve,  Beau- 
mont, Seicheprey,  as  well  as  to  the  fact  that,  even 
in  the  chateau,  they  were  directly  exposed  to  ar- 
tillery-fire. When  next  I  saw  him  he  had  no  need 
to  make  excuses  for  the  peacefulness  of  his  surround- 
ings. 

[117] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

I  confess  however  that  the  terrace  of  the  chateau 
is  an  idylHc  spot.  Shaded  by  parallel  rows  of  clipped 
trees  centuries  old,  its  balustrades  overlook  a  vast 
stretch  of  the  Woevre,  a  view  that,  on  a  fine  day, 
seems  almost  without  limit,  stretching  from  Sanzey 
and  Menil-la-Tour  on  the  right,  over  the  Foret  de 
la  Reine  to  the  grassy  wastes  of  No  Man's  Land 
and  the  hated  heights  of  Mont  Sec  on  the  left.  Were 
it  not  for  the  Adrian  barracks  imder  the  trees  to 
house  the  staff  and  the  great  camouflage  nettings 
over  them  to  screen  them  from  the  air,  you  would 
scarcely  realize,  at  most  times,  that  a  war  was  going 
on. 

Not  until  you  looked  into  those  wastes  of  No 
Man's  Land  did  you  realize,  peering  through  your 
glasses,  that  the  villages  apparently  intact  when 
gilded  by  the  setting  sun,  were  in  reality  mere  heaps 
of  crumbling  walls,  empty  shells,  skeletons  bleach- 
ing in  a  desert. 

Our  trenches  practically  followed  a  portion  of 
the  main  road  that  stretches  from  Commercy  to 
Pont-a-Mousson.  The  names  of  the  villages  along 
this  road — Rambucourt,  Xivray,  Beaumont,  Flirey, 
and    especially    Seicheprey,    where    the    Americans 

[118] 


THE  TOUL  SECTOR 

repelled  their  first  attack  and  received  their  first 
baptism  of  gas — will  always  recall  vivid  memories 
to  the  men,  and  they  are  legion,  who  have  occupied 
this  sector. 

I  visited  in  turn  each  of  these  towns  and  under 
very  varying  circumstances:  first,  in  the  early  days 
when  one  had  practically  to  crawl  about  to  escape 
observation;  then  later,  when  they  were  filled  with 
the  victorious  tide  of  our  First  Army  as  it  advanced 
to  take  the  salient,  and,  lastly,  when  they  were  a 
billeting  area  far  behind  our  lines,  housing  the  units 
that  were  mending  the  roads  or  en  repos.  Beau- 
mont's commanding  situation,  Seicheprey's  desolate 
surroundings  in  the  wastes  of  No  Man's  Land, 
Flirey's  wonderful  church-tower,  poised  miraculously 
in  mid-air  with  one  side  entirely  shot  away — these 
will  remain  pictures  treasured  in  the  minds  of  all 
the  men  who  took  part  in  the  historic  combats  here- 
about. 

Behind  the  trenches,  we  sought  out  the  artillery 
positions,  the  "75s"  quite  near  at  hand,  the 
"heavies"  much  farther  back  in  the  Foret  de  la 
Reine  and  along  from  Minorville  to  Martincourt. 
Two  proud  captains  took  us  one  day — Louis  Rae- 

[119] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

mackers,  Heath  Robinson,  Captain  Townsend,  and 
me — to  sketch  their  *'big  babies,"  their  "240s,"  glis- 
tening monsters  hidden  from  the  prying  eyes  of 
aeroplanes  in  red-earth  pits,  carefully  banked  up 
with  sand-bags  and  covered  with  broad  screens  of 
camouflage  netting  that  broke  all  shadows  and  de- 
stroyed all  contours. 

It  was  principally  in  this  Toul  sector  also  that 
we  sketched  the  hfe  behind  the  lines:  the  big  Q.  M. 
dumps  at  Sanzey  and  Menil-la-Tour,  the  auto-chir. 
hospital  near  Aulnois,  the  railheads  and  engineer 
dumps  near  Pagny;  the  aviation-field  near  Toul, 
where  we  used  to  visit  the  trophy-room  and  see  its 
many  souvenirs  and  drink  champagne  presented  to 
the  young  oflScers  by  the  grateful  citizens  of  the  city 
in  recognition  of  their  protection. 

And  the  billets  of  the  sector !  The  billets  in 
Boucq,  in  the  crowded  towns  behind  Jouy-sous-les- 
Cotes,  in  Corneville  and  Vertuzey,  where  men  from 
the  prim  towns  of  New  England  bunked  in  barns 
with  pigs  and  chickeijs  and  in  hay -lofts  with  cooties 
and  rats;  the  billets  in  the  old  Abbey  of  Rangeval, 
where  some  of  the  soldiers  slept  in  rooms  with  beau- 
tiful Louis  XV  panelling  and  others  in  whitewashed 

[  120] 


o    u 


THE  TOUL  SECTOR 

cells.  But  whether  in  whitewashed  corridor  or 
panelled  hall;  in  a  peasant's  barn  or  a  bourgeois' 
comfortable  bedroom,  the  cheerful  optimism  of 
healthy  young  America  always  held  the  upper  hand 
and  manifested  itself  in  a  thousand  jokes  and 
"scraps";  in  baseball  and  in  hikes  into  all  the  sur- 
rounding countrysides.  These  sane  pleasures,  added 
to  constant  drills  and  periods  spent  in  the  trenches, 
kept  the  men  occupied  and  fairly  happy. 

Such  was  life  in  the  Toul  sector  until  the  month 
of  September  came. 

Then,  suddenly,  a  feverish  activity  developed. 
Something  certainly  was  in  the  air,  a  great  military 
secret,  but  every  one  was  talking  about  it.  New 
divisions  kept  arriving  until  eight  had  been  gathered 
in  the  salient — two  hundred  thousand  men.  The 
American  army,  now  an  autonomous  whole,  was 
to  strike  its  first  great  blow  under  its  own  com- 
manders, under  its  own  Commander-in-Chief,  Gen- 
eral Pershing.  The  day  that  every  one  had  been 
waiting  for  had  come. 


[121] 


V 
TAKING  THE  ST.   MIHIEL  SALIENT 


I 
ABOVE  LES  EPARGES 

ON  the  evening  of  September  10  I  dined 
at  the  Lafayette  Club  in  Neiofchateau 
with  a  friend,  Frank  Sibley,  correspondent 
of  one  of  the  leading  Boston  papers  and  specially 
accredited  to  the  Twenty -Sixth,  or  *' Yankee,"  Divi- 
sion that  I  have  just  been  writing  of  in  the  Toul 
sector.  He  had  just  returned  from  Paris  and  was 
anxious  to  get  back  to  his  New  Englanders,  who  were 
then  stationed  up  near  Verdun.  We  knew,  as  I 
have  said,  that  the  stage  was  set,  ready  for  a  big 
drama,  but,  having  no  exact  information  as  to  when 
or  where  it  was  to  take  place.  Captain  Morgan  and 
I  decided  to  take  our  friend  up  to  his  division  and 
see  what  we  could  learn. 

We  set  out  by  the  same  road  that  we  had  taken 
when  we  went  to  visit  the  Marines  at  Haudiomont. 
But  this  time,  upon  reaching  Souilly,  we  turned  off 
toward  Recourt,  for  we  heard  that  Division  Head- 

[125] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

quarters  had  been  moved  over  to  a  village  called 
Rupt-en-Woevre.  This  information  proved  correct. 
WTien  we  asked  for  headquarters,  we  were  told  that 
they  were  "around  the  corner  in  the  chateau."  But 
this  time  the  "  chateau,"  though  the  most  important 
house  in  the  squalid  village,  was  nothing  more  than 
a  vulgar  dwelling  made  of  red-and-white  glazed 
bricks,  quite  different  from  the  ancient  Chateau  de 
Boucq  down  in  the  Toul  sector.  A  hallway  divided 
it  in  half,  with  a  room  opening  at  each  side.  To 
the  left  was  the  busy  office  of  the  Chief  of  Staff;  to 
the  right,  that  of  the  commanding  general,  simple 
and  bare,  again  a  sharp  contrast  to  the  elegant  Louis 
XV  salon  at  Boucq. 

General  Edwards,  keen  and  alert  as  usual,  minus 
his  Sam  Browne  belt  and  wearing  his  two-starred 
overseas  cap  poised  jauntily  on  one  side  of  his  head, 
greeted  us  cordially.  "I  suppose  you'd  like  to  see 
what  we're  going  to  do,"  he  said.  *'Come  over  and 
have  a  look  at  the  map."  And,  jumping  up,  he  led 
us  to  a  table  upon  which  was  placed  a  large  relief- 
map  of  the  region,  the  hills  and  valleys  carefully 
modelled  in  scale  with  all  their  contours  painted  in 
nature's  colors. 

[  126] 


ABOVE  LES  EPARGES 

Drawing  our  attention  to  the  rough  country  about 
Les  Eparges,  with  its  deep-cut  vales  and  steep  hills, 
he  said:  "It's  a  bad  country  to  operate  in  and  we've 
got  a  tough  job  to  push  down  through  it,  but  we'll 
do  it."  And  then,  looking  out  at  the  rain  that  was 
falling  in  torrents,  he  asked:  "Is  it  raining  down  in 
Toul?"  And,  "That's  bad,"  in  answer  to  our  af- 
firmative. 

And  we  knew  just  what  he  meant.  For  in  the 
marshy  lowlands  of  the  Toul  sector  the  roads  get 
soft  and  spongy.  And  down  there  was  the  other 
tooth  of  the  nippers  that  were  to  bite  into  the  salient 
and  cut  out,  as  with  a  surgeon's  knife,  what  the 
French  had  always  called  the  "hernia  of  St.  Mihiel," 
a  constant  menace  to  their  line,  severing  the  main 
railway  between  Paris  and  Nancy.  In  February, 
1915,  they  had  themselves  attempted  to  cut  out 
this  salient,  but  the  terrible  tragedies  of  Les  Eparges 
and  Combres  had  taught  them  that  the  price  was 
too  great,  and  they  had  desisted,  never  to  try  again. 

"I  don't  suppose  you  can  give  us  any  idea  when 
this  operation  is  to  take  place,  general,"  I  ventured. 

"No,"  he  replied.  "All  I  can  say  is,  'you  are 
warm.'    And  I  can  add,  for  your  information,  that 

[127] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

the  best  place  to  be  is  up  in  the  Grande  Tranchee, 
near  0.  P.  No.  2.  To-night,  however,  you'd  better 
sleep  a  mile  or  two  back  in  Genicourt,  and  get  up 
when  the  big  guns  wake  you,"  he  added,  apparently 
as  an  afterthought,  and  with  such  an  audible  chuckle 
that  we  thought  he  was  joking. 

Before  we  went  back  to  Genicourt,  however,  we 
decided  to  take  a  look  at  the  Grande  Tranchee  and 
try  to  find  the  observation-post  that  the  general 
had  mentioned,  so  that,  if  anything  did  happen, 
we  should  know  exactly  where  to  go. 

Up  the  valley  all  was  apparently  quiet.  A  few 
troops  were  moving  over  toward  Mouilly,  and  along 
the  edges  of  the  woods,  on  looking  more  carefully, 
we  could  make  out  dense  crowds  of  soldiers  hidden 
under  the  trees,  taking  a  breath  of  the  evening  air. 
We  noticed  also  that  a  number  of  big  guns,  some 
howitzers  on  railway-trucks,  others  long-nosed  naval 
guns,  had  just  been  moved  up  and  were  standing 
in  the  open  fields  unprotected  by  camouflage. 

The  incessant  rains  had  put  a  coating  of  oily  mud 
upon  the  road.  Through  the  Forest  of  Amblonville 
it  was  of  the  consistency  and  color  of  potato  soup, 
for  the  soil  on  top  of  the  Cotes  is  calcareous.    And 

[  128] 


ABOVE  LES  EPARGES 

I  remember  a  pair  of  horses  that  lay  in  the  road 
still  hitched  to  a  wagon  that  had  been  smashed  to 
bits  by  a  shell.  The  poor  beasts,  in  their  death- 
struggle,  had  rolled  over  and  over,  and  lay  white 
as  clay  statues,  livid,  coated  with  this  sticky  mud, 
through  which  great  pools  of  blood  welled  forth. 

We  hid  our  car  in  the  woods  and  walked  on  to 
two  company  posts  of  the  103d  Infantry.  There 
we  talked  to  the  officers  but  could  get  no  further 
information.  But  from  what  they  did  tell  us  and 
the  look  of  things  in  general  down  toward  St.  Remy, 
we  made  up  our  minds  that  this  was  the  place  to 
be  if  anything  happened. 

I  slept  that  night  in  a  ruined  house  in  Genicourt, 
with  my  head  pillowed  on  my  haversack  while  the 
rats  gnawed  at  the  straps  on  its  under  side.  In  the 
small  hours  of  the  morning  the  big  guns  did  wake 
us  (for  General  Edwards  had  not  been  joking),  and 
by  dawn  we  were  on  our  way  to  the  P.  C.  where 
we  had  been  the  evening  before. 

The  howitzers  and  naval  guns  that  had  been  silent 
were  now  splitting  the  air  with  the  clamor  of  their 
voices  and  fairly  shaking  the  earth  with  their  con- 
cussions.   Farther  on,  as  we  entered  the  woods,  the 

[129] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

"155s,"  hidden  under  the  trees,  were  firing  in  salvoes 
of  four,  while  up  in  the  Grande  Tranchee  the  crack, 
crack,  crack  of  the  "75s"  was  uninterrupted,  bark- 
ing and  yelping  like  hounds  on  the  chase.  Our  big 
barrage  was  going  over. 

But  very  little  was  coming  back.  So,  as  the  road 
was  absolutely  deserted,  we  kept  straight  on  until 
we  struck  traffic:  ambulances  and  ammunition- 
trains  going  up.  We  hid  our  car  again  and  soon 
had  reached  the  P.  C,  passed  it,  and  were  out  in 
the  trenches.  Here  we  were  told  that  the  infantry 
had  already  gone  over  the  top  and  were  now  in  the 
German  first-line  trenches. 

Out  in  the  blasted  wastes  of  No  Man*s  Land, 
however,  where  hill  succeeded  hill,  once  covered 
with  dense  forests,  now  but  shell-torn  barrens  spotted 
with  a  few  blackened  stumps,  nothing  was  visible 
but  the  shell-bursts  that  kicked  up  clouds  of  dirt 
or  broke  in  dense  balls  of  smoke.  The  "doughboys," 
as  had  always  been  the  case  up  to  this  time,  were 
practically  invisible,  hidden  in  shell-holes,  in  trenches, 
or  under  any  cover  that  they  could  find.  For  all 
that  we  could  see  "a  Corot  would  have  been  a 
better  battle-painter   than   a    Horace   Vernet,"  as 

[  130] 


ABOVE  LES  EPARGES 

"Sem"  so  graphically  puts  it  in  his  "Pekin  sur  le 
Front." 

But  soon  the  wounded  began  to  filter  in  through 
the  trenches — ^poor  fellows,  some  walking  quite 
erect  with  head  or  hand  bound  up;  others  stooping, 
doubled  up  with  pain  and  fear,  their  khaki  coats 
spotted  with  great  brownish  stains,  their  faces  and 
hands  bloody.  Then  came  the  litter-bearers,  stag- 
gering through  the  slippery  mud  up  the  hill,  steady- 
ing themselves  by  a  hand  pressed  against  the  trench 
walls  as  they  bore  their  heavy  burdens — still  forms 
stretched  flat,  immobile,  covered  with  an  O.  D. 
blanket  from  which  protruded  a  pair  of  spiked  shoes 
with  the  toes  turned  up.  When  we  returned  to  the 
regimental  P.  C.  these  pathetic  figures  increased 
in  number,  for  near  it  a  first-aid  dressing-station 
had  just  been  established.  The  stretchers  lay  upon 
the  ground  with  the  doctors  stooping  over  them. 
The  ambulances  came  up  one  by  one,  were  filled 
as  fast  as  the  wounds  were  dressed,  and  despatched 
to  the  rear. 

To  our  left  was  a  division  of  French  Colonials, 
Senegalese  as  black  as  ink.  Their  wounded  were 
also  coming  in,  and  one  of  the  most  striking  pictures 

[131] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

I  saw  that  day  was  one  of  these  negro  giants  borne 
hke  a  bronze  knight  on  the  shoulders  of  four 
prisoners — a  group  reminiscent  of  the  statues  on 
some  mediaeval  tomb. 

By  now  the  prisoners  were  arriving  in  squads; 
then  they  were  brought  in  by  droves.  In  the  first 
lot  I  counted  no  less  than  a  hundred  and  forty;  in 
the  second  over  a  hundred,  and  still  they  steadily 
poured  in.  Most  of  them  were  serious-looking  men 
of  middle  age,  who  certainly  seemed  glad  to  be 
through  with  it,  flinging  down  their  helmets  with 
gestures  that  plainly  said:  "Thank  God,  that's 
over."  A  few  were  slightly  wounded,  but  the  great 
proportion  wore  new  uniforms,  clean,  unspotted 
with  mud,  showing  clearly  that  they  had  given  up 
without  a  struggle;  in  fact,  had  dressed  to  go  into 
captivity.  Their  sergeants  lined  them  up  in  double 
ranks,  under  the  watchful  eye  of  their  own  lieuten- 
ants, while  our  men  looked  on  with  frank  curiosity. 
Then  they  were  questioned  by  our  Intelligence  oflB- 
cers  and  marched  off  to  the  rear,  shambling  off  with 
stooped  shoulders  under  the  guard  of  a  few  alert 
and  rosy -cheeked  young  New  Englanders. 

All  day  long  they  continued  to  pour  in,  and  that 

[  132] 


ABOVE  LES  EPARGES 

evening,  at  Rarecourt,  the  accommodations  pro- 
vided were  so  inadequate  to  the  numbers  that  had 
come  in,  that  I  saw  hundreds  of  them  huddled  to- 
gether, crowded  into  temporary  pens,  fenced  round 
with  barbed  wire,  passing  the  night  in  the  drizzhng 
rain — hving  evidences  of  our  victory. 


[133] 


n 

INTO  ST.   MIHIEL 

NEXT  morning  early,  we  started  out  for 
St.  Mihiel  to  see  what  had  happened  down 
in  that  direction. 
It  was  the  13th  of  September,  a  date  forever 
memorable  in  American  history,  and  little  did  we 
suspect  that,  by  our  decision,  we  were  going  to  as- 
sist at  the  very  scene  that  makes  this  date  historic. 
As  we  approached  the  city,  we  found  that  the 
only  route  by  which  we  could  reach  it  was  the  one 
that  comes  in  from  the  west  through  Rupt-devant- 
St.  Mihiel,  an  abandoned  road  in  a  desert  landscape: 
tall  dead  grass  where  once  had  been  rich  fields ;  acres 
of  barbed  wire  where  yellow  wheat  had  sprouted — 
a  country  that  had  been  a  No  Man's  Land  for  four 
long  years.  As  we  approached  Chauvoncourt,  a 
suburb  of  St.  Mihiel  that  lies  across  the  Meuse, 
we  found  our  way  blocked.  And  when  we  got  out 
we  soon  saw  the  reason.     A  mine  had  been  sprung 

[134] 


INTO  ST.   MIHIEL 

the  night  before  and  an  enormous  hole  some  twenty 
feet  deep  gaped  from  house  to  house  across  the 
street. 

What  a  strange  street  it  was !  For  four  years 
Chauvoncourt  had  been  lying  in  No  Man's  Land 
with  only  a  German  outpost  or  two  among  its  bat- 
tered houses.  Vines,  many  of  them  already  blood- 
red  in  their  autumn  tints,  had  climbed  at  will  over 
its  stone  walls,  choked  up  its  shuttered  windows, 
closed  its  doors,  and  had  even  woven  their  tendrils 
round  its  chimney-pots.  Grass  and  weeds  formed 
an  unbroken  carpet  over  the  rough  paving-stones 
of  this  once  busy  thoroughfare.  All  was  silent  as 
death,  and  in  this  uncanny  stillness  a  strange  feeling 
came  over  one,  as  of  walking  in  the  streets  of  some 
plague-stricken  city,  of  some  town  in  a  fairy-tale, 
cursed  and  enchanted  by  the  wave  of  a  Merlin's 
wand. 

We  emerged  from  this  street  upon  the  banks  of 
the  Meuse,  river  of  many  memories.  There  we 
found  a  little  group  of  children  with  French  flags 
in  their  hands  and  bits  of  tricolored  ribbon  tied  in 
their  hair  or  clothing.  French  engineers  had  just 
succeeded  in  piecing  together  a  rickety  wooden  foot- 

[135] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

bridge,  made  of  doors,  window-sashes,  and  pieces 
of  panelling,  leaning  for  support  against  the  ruined 
stone  bridge  adjoining  it.  Across  this  unsteady  foot- 
way these  children  had  come,  accompanied  by  a 
few  women  and  an  old  man  or  two. 

They  looked  curiously  at  us  as  we  came  along. 
They  had  never  seen  our  uniforms  before.  Finally 
some  one  exclaimed,  *'Mais,  ce  sont  des  Americains,'* 
and  they  all  crowded  eagerly  about  us,  anxious  to 
see  the  first  representatives  of  that  far-off  nation 
that  had  come  to  their  aid  and  made  their  deliver- 
ance possible. 

Fortunately  I  could  talk  to  them  and  answer  their 
many  questions.  I  remarked  that  their  children 
looked  well.  "Yes,  they  were  good  to  the  children. 
The  soldiers  were  not  so  bad,  many  of  them  fathers 
themselves — but  the  officers !  If  ever  you  get  hold 
of  a  Prussian  officer  ..."  followed  by  a  savage 
gesture  of  hatred  and  murder.  But  their  stories 
were  not  of  the  kind  you  read  about  in  books — no 
lurid  "atrocities,"  no  "iron  heels,"  but  plain  tales 
of  cruel  anguish,  both  mental  and  physical — the 
anguish  of  four  long  years  of  waiting  with  the  French 
lines  in  plain  sight  all  the  time,  yet  never  a  word 

[136] 


INTO  ST.   MIHIEL 

from  those  they  held  most  dear — sons,  sweethearts, 
husbands  in  the  ranks  of  the  armies  of  France — the 
anguish  of  long  privations,  of  insufficient  food  and 
heat,  and  the  dearth  of  warm,  clean  clothes. 

"Four  years,  monsieur;  think  of  it!"  said  one 
elderly  dame.  "I  remember  the  day  they  came — a 
Thursday,  the  24th  of  September,  1914.  I  was  one 
of  the  first  to  see  them  coming  and  I  cried  out,  *Mon 
Dieu,  here  they  are,  the  Prussians,'  and  I  almost 
went  crazy.  Three  regiments  came  in.  I  can  see 
them  yet.  They  were  proud  in  those  days — proud 
and  arrogant.  Ah,  if  I  had  known  that  it  was  going 
to  last  four  years,  I  should  have  died  on  the  spot !  ** 

And  one  of  the  men  told  me  that  what  irritated 
the  Germans  most  was  to  be  told  that  every  nation 
in  the  world,  both  black  and  white,  was  against 
them.  For  a  long  time  they  laughed  at  the  idea 
that  America  could  help,  saying:  "We  won't  let 
them  come.  Our  submarines  will  sink  them  all." 
But  during  the  late  summer  they  avoided  this  sub- 
ject entirely. 

Then,  suddenly,  this  same  man  looked  up  the 
river  and  exclaimed:  "Why,  the  Devil's  Table  is 
gone!"     And    he    pointed    to    some    curious    rock 

[137] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

formations,  pinnacles  and  towers  worn  by  erosion, 
that  rose  from  the  river-bank.  On  one  of  these,  he 
said,  a  large  flat  rock  had  always  hung  poised,  a 
great  stone  universally  known  as  the  Devil's  Table. 
During  the  last  bombardment  it  must  have  been 
knocked  off,  but  its  absence  had  not  been  noticed 
from  the  other  side  of  the  river. 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "the  devil  has  gone  and  taken 
his  table  with  him  !'* 

And,  in  fact,  the  devil  had  gone  that  very  night. 
At  sundown  on  the  evening  before  the  townspeople 
had  been  ordered  to  shut  themselves  in  their  houses 
and  not  to  look  out  again  till  dawn.  They  heard 
sharp  orders  in  the  darkness  and  troops  moving 
in  the  streets  at  midnight,  and  when  they  looked  out 
in  the  morning  not  a  Boche  was  to  be  seen. 

Followed  by  the  curious  children,  we  crossed  by 
the  rickety  foot-bridge  and  entered  the  Place  des 
Halles,  a  large  square  at  the  entrance  to  the  city. 
Here  a  peloton  of  cavalry — ^French  Colonials — and 
a  single  platoon  of  infantry  were  drawn  up  in  a  corner 
surrounded  by  quite  a  little  crowd  of  people.  These 
latter  were  dressed  in  their  best  clothes,  most  of 
them  in  well-brushed  black,  and  with  an  unwonted 

[  138  ] 


INTO  ST.   MIHIEL 

light  shining  in  their  thin,  pale  faces.  All  were  talk- 
ing animatedly  either  to  the  soldiers  or  to  each 
other — all  except  two  young  women  with  powdered 
cheeks  and  painted  lips,  who  stood  quite  apart, 
and  who,  perhaps,  were  not  so  glad  to  see  the  Ger- 
mans go. 

Here  again,  in  the  square,  our  uniforms  attracted 
much  attention.  And,  as  I  talked  to  the  poor  people, 
I  heard  the  same  sad  tales  of  pain  and  suffering,  of 
Frenchmen,  prisoners,  who,  from  their  windows, 
could  see  their  own  troops  in  their  trenches,  yet  had 
to  wait  four  years  to  be  delivered. 

"Ah,  monsieur,"  said  one  of  them,  "at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  war,  I  had  three  sons  in  the  French 
army,  and  never  a  word  of  them  have  I  heard  since. 
I  dread  to  have  tidings  of  them  now." 

All  their  provisions  had  been  confiscated  and 
their  cellars  rifled  at  the  very  beginning.  Since 
then,  they  told  me,  they  had  not  tasted  a  drop  of 
wine  or  beer  and  had  lived  on  black  bread  and  a 
little  tinned  meat.  Pulling  out  her  loose  clothes 
from  her  shrunken  body,  one  of  the  women  said: 
"Look  at  me;   my  own  daughter  won't  know  me." 

The  town  itself  looked  quite  intact.     But  each 

[  139] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

house  had  been  systematically  pillaged,  robbed  of 
everything  movable.  German  signs  marked  the 
various  Kommandanturs  and  military  offices,  and 
over  the  door  of  one  cafe  I  noticed  the  words  *'0f- 
fiziers  Kasino."  Two  women  were  just  unlocking 
its  door,  and  we  joined  them,  curious  to  see  what 
this  Officers'  Club  would  look  like.  It  was  but  a 
common  cafe.  The  mugs  still  stood  upon  the  tables 
with  the  dregs  of  last  night's  beer  in  them;  the  re- 
mains of  potato  salad  were  in  the  bowls,  and  big 
muddy  footprints  on  the  red-velvet  banquettes 
showed  where  some  one  had  stepped  up  to  tear  the 
notices  from  the  walls.  I  noted  the  prices  on  the 
Wein-Karte:  eight  to  twenty  marks  for  Moselle 
wine;  vermouth,  curagao,  or  "cognac,"  two  marks  a 
glass. 

Near  the  Hotel  de  Ville  we  met,  to  our  surprise, 
an  American  aviator  wandering  about  looking  for 
a  telephone,  which  of  course  he  could  not  find,  as 
none  existed.  He  had  been  having  a  royal  time,  he 
told  us,  machine-gunning  the  retreating  Germans 
up  north,  at  close  range,  but  had  finally  been  forced 
down  by  engine  trouble.  His  head-dress  and  coat 
attracted   much   attention   from   the   children   and 

[  140] 


INTO  ST.   MIHIEL 

we  went  back  to  the  Place  des  Halles  escorted  by 
quite  a  crowd,  greeted  also  by  gentle  smiles  from 
sad  faces  that  peered  from  behind  the  window-cur- 
tains. French  flags,  resurrected  from  heaven  knows 
what  hiding-places,  now  hung  out  in  the  streets,  and 
the  town  was  more  animated  than  when  we  first 
entered  it. 

We  had  crossed  the  river  and  were  on  our  way 
back  to  our  car  when,  in  the  silent  street  of  Chau- 
voncourt,  we  met  and  saluted  a  French  general  with 
his  two  stars  soldered  to  the  front  of  his  trench  hel- 
met. We  had  just  admired  his  fine  soldierly  bearing, 
when  on  turning  the  next  corner  we  stopped  as- 
tonished. 

What  was  this  brilliant  group  coming  toward 
us.f^ — brilliant  indeed  for  the  time  and  place.  It 
took  but  a  moment  for  us  to  guess,  for  walking  at 
its  head  were  two  figures  that  all  of  us  knew:  Gen- 
eral Petain,  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  armies  of 
France,  and  our  own  great  Commander-in-Chief, 
General  Pershing — the  Frenchman  robust,  alert,  his 
field  uniform  harmonizing  well  with  his  iron-gray 
hair  and  deep-blue  eyes;  the  American  tall,  erect, 
free  in  his  carriage,  "every  inch  a  soldier,"  and  re- 

[141] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

spending  to  our  salute — a  little  surprised  perhaps 
to  see  us  there — with  a  most  gracious  "Good  morn- 
ing, gentlemen." 

Behind  these  two  great  leaders  followed  a  group 
of  generals,  mostly  French,  as  well  as  a  few  staflf 
officers,  perhaps  a  score  in  all.  How  could  we  re- 
sist ?  We  turned  and  followed  them,  for  we  wanted 
to  witness  this  truly  historic  event,  the  entrance 
of  General  Pershing  into  St.  Mihiel.  A  few  weak 
cheers,  but  rather  an  abashed  and  tearful  silence, 
greeted  the  generals  on  the  near  side  of  the  Meuse; 
then  they  picked  their  way  across  the  rickety  bridge 
in  single  file  and  climbed  up  into  the  Place  des 
Halles. 

The  bronzed  cavalrymen  were  now  drawn  up  at 
salute  flanked  by  the  platoon  of  infantry.  And 
that  was  all  the  guard  of  honor  that  there  was.  The 
townspeople  formed  a  compact  little  black  crowd 
in  the  centre  of  the  square,  and  as  the  generals  ap- 
proached there  were  cries  of  "Vive  la  France  !  Vive 
I'Amerique !  Vive  Petain!"  But  no  one  knew 
Pershing's  name,  and  how  should  they,  with  all 
means  of  information  cut  off,  immured  as  they  had 
been  behind  the  German  lines. 

[142] 


INTO  ST.   MIHIEL 

Petain,  however,  effaced  himself  as  much  as  pos- 
sible, leaving  to  the  American  Commander-in-Chief 
the  homage  due  him  as  leader  of  the  troops  that 
had  won  the  victory  and  delivered  the  town.  So 
that  when  an  elderly  dame  advanced,  bent  and 
rheumatic,  with  a  bouquet  of  field-flowers  in  her 
hand,  it  was  our  general  who  took  it,  with  all  the 
gracious  dignity  and  courtliness  for  which  he  is  re- 
markable, his  square  shoulders  relaxing,  his  head 
bending  just  enough  to  allow  him  to  say  a  few  words 
of  sympathy  and  thanks. 

Ah,  how  touching  it  all  was  in  its  simplicity — 
this  little  ceremony  before  a  mere  handful  of  people 
— how  different  from  such  a  scene  as  one  might 
imagine  it;  how  far  removed  from  the  entrance  of 
victors  into  a  beleaguered  city  as  depicted  in  the 
history  of  the  past ! 

The  little  party  walked  on  toward  the  Hotel  de 
Ville,  where  there  were  to  be  speeches  by  the  mayor 
and  others.  But  who  cares  for  fine  phrases  on  an 
occasion  such  as  this?  So  thinking,  we  retraced 
our  steps  again  back  toward  our  motor.  Just  as 
we  reached  it  a  khaki-colored  limousine  came  up 
and  out  of  it  stepped  our  Secretary  of  War,  Newton 

[143] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

Baker,  his  plain  civilian  clothes,  despite  his  tricolor 
headquarters  brassard,  looking  strangely  out  of 
place  in  No  Man's  Land.  With  a  brisk  step,  he 
set  out  at  once  toward  the  city,  accompanied  only 
by  an  American  major. 

Well,  we  thought  that  all  was  finished,  but  one 
more  surprise  awaited  us.  For,  as  our  driver  was 
picking  his  way  through  the  rough  spots  of  the  road, 
a  new  string  of  motors  came  rocking  toward  us  and 
in  the  first  one  I  recognized  France's  Premier,  her 
grand  old  "Tiger,"  Clemenceau,  eager  also  to  be- 
hold the  first  French  city  to  be  liberated  from  the 
German  yoke  after  four  years  of  captivity. 


[  144] 


Ill 

TO  THE  HINDENBURG  LINE 

WE  now  headed  off  for  the  south  front  of 
the  saHent,  where  the  main  bulk  of  the 
American  army  was  engaged,  taking 
the  Commercy  road  as  far  as  Sampigny,  another 
one  of  those  strange  places  that  had  lain  so  long 
between  the  lines,  its  houses  absolutely  deserted, 
with  their  shutters  drawn  like  closed  eyes  and  woven 
over  with  webs  of  vines  and  creepers. 

Here  we  turned  off  on  the  road  to  Apremont, 
crossing  a  particularly  dreary  stretch  of  No  Man's 
Land,  a  cursed  zone  where  nothing  but  weeds  had 
grown  in  four  years  and  whose  villages,  apparently 
uninjured  at  a  distance,  faded  like  ghostly  phantoms 
as  one  approached,  resolving  themselves  into  a  few 
broken  doorways  and  crumbling  walls.  Near  St. 
Aignant  we  reached  the  old  French  trenches.  The 
engineers  were  just  filling  them  in  and  had  progressed 
far  enough  to  allow  us  to  go  bumping  over,  so  that, 

[  145  ] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

as  we  laughingly  said,  we  actually  went  "over  the 
top  in  a  Dodge." 

St.  Aignant  had  been  the  ultimate  French  outpost. 
Apremont,  just  beyond  it,  had  been  German  and 
both  towns  were  perfect  networks  of  defenses :  street 
barricades  with  wattled  revetments  and  gabions, 
machine-gun  nests,  labyrinthine  abris  and  dugouts — 
all  the  elaborate  system  of  long-organized  resistance. 
Apremont,  because  German,  was  the  more  novel 
and,  therefore,  the  more  interesting.  The  entrance 
to  each  street  from  No  Man's  Land  had  been  mined 
and  blown  up,  so  that  great  holes,  fifteen  or  more 
feet  deep,  filled  with  rain-water,  acted  as  moats 
against  tanks  and  surprise  attacks.  The  walls  of 
all  the  surrounding  houses  had  been  reinforced  with 
masonry  or  cement  and  were  pierced  with  holes  for 
machine-guns,  so  that  they  were  veritable  fortresses. 
Behind  one  fagade  I  discovered  a  scaffolding,  four 
stories  in  height,  like  those  made  for  masons,  so  that 
on  each  platform  men  could  stand  with  their  rifles 
pointed  through  loopholes,  like  the  meurtrieres  of 
mediaeval  battlements,  and  command  a  field  of  fire 
down  all  the  streets.  These  streets  were,  besides, 
a  wilderness  of  wire,  an  inextricable  tangle,  inter- 

[146] 


TO  THE  HINDENBURG  LINE 

spersed  with  chevaux  de  frise  and  loose  coils  whose 
barbs  caught  the  foot  and  tripped  one  at  every  step. 

The  road  as  far  as  Apremont  had  been  quite  free 
from  traffic.  But  at  Bouconville  we  began  to  strike 
the  full  tide  of  our  advancing  army — a  tide  that 
for  days  flowed  on,  never-ceasing,  slow-moving  but 
endless,  sometimes  congested  and  dammed  for  a  while, 
then  pushing  on  again;  eating,  resting,  sleeping, 
joking,  swearing,  grumbling  as  it  went,  but  cease- 
lessly and  stubbornly  advancing,  oozing  up  every 
road  it  could  find,  as  it  followed  the  *' doughboys" 
that  blazed  the  trail,  pushing  the  Hun  back  to  his 
main  defenses  on  the  Hindenburg  line. 

We  took  the  first  opportunity  that  presented 
itself  to  pay  our  respects  to  Mont  Sec,  that  hated 
hill,  whose  batteries  had  dominated  our  sector  for 
so  many  months,  whose  telescopic  eyes  had  watched 
our  every  movement.  I  hope  its  troglodytic  habi- 
tations will  be  preserved  for  future  visitors  to  see — 
its  Kommandanturs  with  the  Prussian  eagle  moulded 
in  the  cement  above  their  entrances;  its  dugouts, 
plastered  and  papered,  with  furniture  fashioned  of 
twisted  boughs,  artistic  abortions,  but  made  with 
the  patience  and  care  dear  to  the  German  heart; 

[147] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

and  its  rustic  pavilions  on  the  sheltered  side  of  the 
hill  that  recalled  to  my  mind  many  a  Turnverein 
picnic-ground  in  America. 

The  crossroad  at  Flirey  was  always  a  busy  spot 
in  those  days  of  the  St.  Mihiel  otfensive.  When  I 
first  saw  it,  the  tottering  walls  of  the  houses  that 
once  surrounded  it  were  still  standing,  but  in  a 
day  or  two  they  were  gone,  pulled  down,  reduced 
to  broken  stone  and  loaded  on  trucks  by  the  en- 
gineers to  repair  the  roads  of  No  Man's  Land. 

Oh,  those  roads  of  No  Man's  Land;  shall  I  ever 
forget  them ! 

From  Flirey  to  Essey  was  one;  from  Limey  to 
Euvezin  was  another.  Down  one  long  swale  of 
tangled  weeds  and  wire,  over  a  bit  of  soft  bottom- 
land, and  up  the  opposite  hill.  The  wheels  sinking 
to  the  axles;  the  road,  if  road  it  could  be  called, 
marked  by  dead  horses,  their  stiffening  legs  in  the 
air — poor  worn-out  beasts  that  had  reached  the  end 
of  their  trail,  the  final  effort  of  the  long,  weary  haul. 
Artillery  and  wagon  trains  and,  later,  lines  of  trucks 
crawled  painfully  across  these  dreary  wastes, 
strangely  diminished  in  size  by  the  immensity  of 
their   surroundings,   through   valleys   that   had   re- 

[  148] 


TO  THE  HINDENBURG  LINE 

verted  to  deserts  and  fields  unmarked  by  any  fur- 
row, their  noble  trees  but  a  few  blackened  stumps, 
their  villages  but  piles  of  stones.  .  .  . 

Beyond  these  empty  spaces  we  found  the  German 
lines;  then  the  villages  that  had  been  their  head- 
quarters. Essey  was  one  of  these  and  an  important 
one.  In  a  protected  angle  of  its  church,  where  apse 
and  transept  meet,  they  had  built  a  P.  C,  sheltered 
by  the  thick  stone  walls  that  stood  between  it  and 
our  artillery.  And  there,  in  plastered  rooms  with 
whitewashed  walls  and  comfortable  furniture,  the 
German  generals  could  work  and  sleep  in  peace  and 
safety.  Just  outside  this  abri  a  rustic  pavilion  had 
been  erected  where,  at  a  round  table,  the  commander 
and  his  staff  could  eat  their  meals  in  the  open  air. 
Essey,  when  I  first  saw  it,  had  just  become  one  of 
the  Brigade  Headquarters  of  the  Forty-Second  Divi- 
sion, and  its  streets  were  filled  with  spluttering  side- 
cars and  motorcycles,  and  rattled  with  the  ceaseless 
streams  of  wagons  and,  later,  of  heavily  laden  trucks, 
that  rolled  over  its  rough  stones  with  a  noise  like 
thunder. 

We  pushed  on  beyond  it  to  Pannes — a  village 
that  our  tanks  had  just  taken  and  which  was  still 

[149] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

the  headquarters  of  the  tank  corps,  whose  young 
officers  were  full  of  tales  of  combat — stories  of  how 
their  steel  beasts  had  devoured  the  machine-gun 
nests  in  the  houses  and  cleared  the  town  completely 
of  the  enemy.  From  the  top  of  the  hill  to  the  north 
of  the  village  I  could  see  the  shells  still  falling  out 
in  the  fields  toward  Beney,  and  over  toward  St. 
Benoit,  that  our  troops  had  just  taken,  clouds  of 
smoke  from  fires  and  shell-bursts  rose  lazily  into 
the  air. 

From  Pannes  I  proceeded  as  far  as  Bouillonville, 
a  little  place  situated  in  a  circular  depression  just 
behind  our  lines.  Most  of  the  German  dead  along 
the  way  had  not  yet  been  buried  and  in  a  quarry 
on  a  hilltop  I  came  upon  a  machine-gun  nest  that 
had  been  put  out  of  action  by  a  single  shell.  Its 
four  gunners  had  been  caught  eating  when  the  shell 
came  over  and  lay  in  a  heap  just  where  they  had 
been  sitting  with  their  black  bread  and  sausage  still 
clasped  in  their  stiff  hands. 

Bouillonville  and  the  woods  behind  it  back  to 
Euvezin  were  crowded  with  the  reserve  battalions 
of  the  Eighty-Ninth,  a  division  that  was  making  a 
name  for  itself  in  this  drive.     Its  trucks  were  re- 

[150] 


i- 


TO  THE  HINDENBURG  LINE 

turning  from  Thiaucourt,  three  kilometres  ahead, 
filled  with  refugees,  the  civil  population  of  the  town 
being  evacuated  in  view  of  the  bombardment  that 
was  sure  to  follow  its  capture.  I  talked  to  a  number 
of  these  poor  people :  nuns  with  placid  faces;  elderly 
men  whose  shrunken  bodies  only  half  filled  their 
Sunday  clothes  of  before  the  war;  women  in  bonnets 
with  strings  tied  under  their  chins,  tired-looking 
and  hungry  after  nights  spent  in  cellars  or  in  tending 
their  peaked  children — all  of  them  leaving  homes 
that  they  knew  would  now  be  destroyed,  but  happy, 
they  said,  happy  in  the  thought  that  at  last  they 
were  freed  from  the  hated  German  yoke,  freed 
by  these  sturdy,  clean  young  boys  from  far-away 
America. 

One  of  the  men  thus  told  his  story: 

"At  one  o'clock  in  the  morning,  on  the  night  of 
September  12th,  the  bombardment  began.  At  the 
sound  of  the  first  shell  we  all  went  down  into  our 
cellars.  What  was  going  to  happen  ?  Several  times 
already  we  had  hoped  to  be  delivered.  Several 
times  attacks  had  taken  place  but  had  not  produced 
the  desired  result.  All  night  we  waited,  not  daring 
to  hope.     Then,  between  eleven  o'clock  and  noon 

[151] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

on  the  13th,  the  Boches  departed,  leaving  only  a  few 
companies  to  cover  their  retreat,  and  these  were 
later  taken  prisoners. 

"The  bombardment  ceased  at  about  one-thirty. 
I  took  a  peep  out  of  the  cellar  and  saw  the  Ameri- 
cans arriving.  In  a  few  minutes  everybody  was 
in  the  street  to  acclaim  our  Allies.  We  kissed  them, 
we  shook  their  hands,  for  it  was  impossible  for  us 
to  express  to  them  in  words  our  joy  and  gratitude. 
Happily,  we  knew  their  uniforms,  for  we  had  seen 
a  few  prisoners  pass — otherwise,  we  might  have 
mistaken  them  for  a  new  kind  of  German  or  *  other 
Bulgarian ' !  This  morning  we  packed  up  a  few  of 
our  belongings,  and  here  we  are  on  our  way  to  safety. 
Our  poor  city — what  will  become  of  it.^'* 

Later  on  in  that  same  day,  September  13,  I 
learned  that  the  American  First  Army,  acting  as  an 
autonomous  unit,  had  attained  all  its  main  ob- 
jectives. 

The  Twenty-Sixth,  that  we  had  seen  start  out 
the  morning  before  near  Les  Eparges,  had  pushed  its 
way  steadily  down  from  the  north,  and  had  reached 
St.  Benoit,  while  the  bulk  of  the  army,  wheeling 
on  Pont-a-Mousson  as  a  pivot,  with  the  veteran 

[  152  ] 


TO  THE  HINDENBURG  LINE 

First  Division  on  its  extreme  left,  had  advanced 
from  the  south.  These  two  main  columns  had  been 
scheduled  to  meet  in  VigneuUes-les-Hattonchatel, 
a  town  perched  high  on  the  Cotes  de  Meuse  in  the 
very  centre  of  the  salient.  It  was  a  race  as  to  which 
would  reach  it  first.  The  Twenty-Sixth  won,  for 
its  patrols  entered  the  town  at  dawn  on  the  13th, 
exactly  on  time,  and  when  the  advance-guard  of 
the  First  arrived  a  few  hours  later,  the  nippers  closed 
and  the  St.  Mihiel  salient  was  wiped  from  the  war- 
map  forever. 


[153] 


VI 

THE  GREAT  MEUSE-ARGONNE  OFFENSIVE 


I 

BEFORE  MONTFAUCON 

DURING  the  week  that  followed  the  taking 
of  the  St.  Mihiel  salient  there  was  much 
discussion  among  the  officers  as  to  where 
the  next  blow  of  the  American  army  would  fall.  A 
large  proportion  of  the  men  talked  of  a  direct  at- 
tack on  Metz  and  most  of  their  eyes  were  turned 
in  that  direction. 

But  on  the  evening  of  September  24  we  received 
a  direct  "tip"  from  General  Headquarters  to  the 
effect  that,  if  we  went  up  somewhere  northwest  of 
Verdun,  we  "would  be  likely  to  see  something  in- 
teresting."   That  was  quite  enough. 

Soon  after  lunch  we  set  out,  three  of  us,  for  Bar- 
le-Duc,  where  we  had  a  conference  with  our  chief 
from  G.  H.  Q.,  who  had  moved  up  there  that  day 
and  who  suggested  that  we  go  on  as  far  as  Clermont- 
en-Argonne,  a  town  situated  about  ten  kilometres 
behind   the   front  line.     We   arrived   there   toward 

[157] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

seven  in  the  evening  but  found  only  a  regimental 
headquarters.  The  colonel,  however,  was  very 
helpful.  He  explained  that  even  from  the  hill  be- 
hind Clermont,  a  conspicuous  landmark  and  a  noted 
O.  P.,  that  was  bombarded  every  night,  little  could 
be  seen  of  any  actual  engagement.  But  he  advised 
us  to  find  one  of  his  captains,  Norcross  by  name, 
over  near  Dombasle — a  man  who  knew  every  foot 
of  the  country  and  could  direct  us  just  where  to  go. 
So  we  set  out  to  find  him. 

Twilight  of  late  September  was  now  deepening 
into  dusk,  and  this  dusk  soon  became  a  total  dark- 
ness, utterly  opaque,  black  as  ink,  unlit,  in  the  early 
night,  by  any  moon  or  star,  for  a  foggy  curtain  hung 
low  over  the  land.  So,  not  daring  to  show  the  sign 
of  a  light,  we  had  to  creep  along  very  slowly.  Some- 
times a  great  camion  would  go  crashing  by  and  some- 
times a  string  of  them.  At  the  crossroads  silent 
M.  P.'s  stood  to  direct  traffic  and  prevent  collisions. 
We  finally  reached  Dombasle  and  took  the  first 
turn  to  the  right  as  directed,  following  a  deserted 
road  up  a  long  hill,  but  could  discover  no  trace  of 
Captain  Norcross. 

Not  a  being  was  in  sight  and  a  brooding  mystery 

[158] 


BEFORE  MONTFAUCON 


SEDAH 


Km 


Gr;\ndPRi 


Sketch-map  of  the  Argonne  offensive 

[159] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

had  settled  down  upon  these  black  wildernesses  of 
bleak  landscape — an  uncanny  feeling  enhanced  by 
the  fact  that  we  now  knew  perfectly  well  that  with- 
in a  very  few  hours  hell  would  be  let  loose  and  every- 
thing would  be  on  the  move. 

Down  a  hill  and  we  found  ourselves  in  Brabant; 
then,  most  unexpectedly,  back  on  the  very  same 
road  from  Clermont  to  Dombasle  that  we  had  just 
been  following,  for,  in  the  darkness,  we  had  made 
a  complete  circle.  Near  Recicourt  we  spotted  the 
headquarters  of  the  Thirty-Seventh  Division  in 
some  dugouts  by  the  roadside.  Opening,  then  shut- 
ting a  door,  and  raising  a  blanket  that  hung  so  as 
to  obliterate  any  stray  beam  of  light  that  might 
escape,  an  orderly  led  us  into  the  adjutant's  office. 
Here  a  few  officers  sat  poring  over  maps  or  talking 
quietly  in  corners  where  the  dim  candle-light  threw 
huge  grotesque  shadows  upon  the  wall. 

With  the  information  we  gathered  there  we  set 
out  to  make  one  more  attempt  to  find  our  captain, 
and  a  little  later  did  locate  him  in  a  hollow  below 
Brocourt.  He  advised  us  to  go  on  to  Montzeville, 
saying  that  the  big  guns  round  where  he  was  would 
deafen  us  when  they  woke  up,  while  up  at  Montze- 

[160] 


BEFORE  MONTFAUCON 

ville  we  would  be  beyond  the  heavy  artillery  as  well 
as  nearer  the  scene  of  action. 

So  in  the  Stygian  darkness  we  set  out  once  more. 
It  was  now  ten-thirty.  We  must  again  have  taken 
a  wrong  turning,  for  suddenly  we  found  ourselves 
in  Sivry-la-Perche.  But  an  M.  P.  set  us  right  and 
we  started  off  toward  Bethelaincourt.  The  cannon 
were  now  beginning  to  wake  the  echoes  and  star- 
shells  and  rockets  appeared  toward  the  north.  By 
this  time  we  were  very  close  to  the  front  lines  and 
we  knew  that  at  any  moment  anything  might 
happen.  One  more  wrong  turning  and  we  might 
land  in  ''Bocheland" ! 

No  further  mishap  befell  us,  however,  and  when 
we  reached  Montzeville  we  sought  out  a  shelter 
in  which  to  pass  the  remainder  of  the  night.  All 
that  we  could  find  was  the  duck-walk  leading  into 
an  abri  where  the  doctors  were  getting  what  rest 
they  could  before  the  strenuous  work  of  the  morrow. 

At  twelve-fifteen  the  artillery  "preparation"  be- 
gan. Flashes  like  those  of  some  prodigious  elec- 
tric storm  swept  the  horizon.  The  booming  of  the 
distant  guns,  becoming  less  and  less  intermittent, 
rolled  at  last  into  one  continuous  roar.    Just  before 

[161] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

three  o'clock  the  air  was  split  by  violent  concus- 
sions. A  battery  of  155s  in  the  very  next  room, 
so  to  speak,  suddenly  woke  to  action;  some  naval 
guns  "around  the  corner"  rocked  the  ground  with 
the  force  of  an  earthquake. 

The  great  barrage  had  begun. 

The  nearer  crashes  were  answered  by  more  dis- 
tant rumblings  up  and  down  the  line  until  the  roll 
of  the  guns  came  fast  as  a  drum-beat  and  each  beat 
was  the  voice  of  a  cannon !  In  sudden  lurid  flashes 
the  ruined  houses  of  Montzeville  leaped  out  of  the 
night,  lit  as  if  by  lightning  strokes,  then,  as  instantly, 
faded  into  darkness.  Bursts  of  pale-green  balls 
arose,  signalling  to  the  artillery.  Few  shells  were 
"coming  over."  Once  in  a  while  a  dull  thud  and 
some  one  would  call  out  "Gas !"  But,  for  the  most 
part,  the  Boche  was  in  his  dugout,  hiding  from  our 
withering  fire. 

As  the  first  wan  streaks  of  dawn  began  to  pale 
the  sky  Montzeville  appeared  razed  to  the  ground, 
and  I  found  myself  in  a  muddy  roadway  that  once 
had  been  a  village  street — now  nothing  but  ruts 
and  puddles  and  shell-holes  edged  with  a  few  bat- 
tered walls.     The  ambulances  began  to  move,  and 

[  162] 


BEFORE  MONTFAUCON 

toward  five  o'clock  up  went  the  balloons,  slow, 
clumsy,  like  huge  bloated  worms,  climbing  skyward 
with  their  observers  in  their  baskets,  ready  to  watch 
the  effect  of  our  barrage. 

Terrific  as  it  had  been,  the  roar  of  the  guns 
redoubled.  Five-twenty -five  was  the  zero  hour. 
Never,  we  are  told,  in  the  history  of  the  world,  was 
such  a  barrage  put  over  as  on  that  morning  of 
September  26.  In  the  short  American  sector  alone, 
four  thousand  guns  were  speaking,  and  the  men  were 
officially  notified  that  this  was  no  mere  local  offensive 
but  *'one  grand  push  from  the  North  Sea  to  the 
Vosges." 

And  I  thought  of  the  effort  and  of  the  sacrifice 
that  it  represented;  of  the  women  depriving  them- 
selves at  home  to  make  it  possible;  of  the  sweating 
men  who  had  forged  the  steel ;  the  miners,  the  steve- 
dores, the  stokers  at  hot  furnaces  braving  the  U- 
boats;  the  engineers  and  all  the  men  scattered  across 
France  that  had  pushed  these  men  and  guns  to  the 
front.  .  .  . 

As  dawn  broke,  we  moved  on  up  to  Esnes,  di- 
rectly under  the  southern  slope  of  Hill  304,  that 
hill  of  tragic  memories.     Its  denuded  flanks,  scenes 

[  163] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

of  such  bloody  combats,  rose  bleak  and  barren,  be- 
reft of  all  vegetation,  behind  the  ruined  town  that 
lay  in  the  valley  wrapped  in  a  bluish  haze.  To  the 
eye  alone  all  seemed  peaceful  enough.  No  clouds 
of  battle-smoke  rose  high  in  air  or  hung  low  in  the 
hollows;  no  cavalry  went  dashing  by  mounted  on 
neighing  steeds;  no  flags,  no  bands  of  music. 
Nothing  to  see  but  mud  and  dirt  and  troops,  troops 
everywhere,  plodding  ever  forward,  struggling 
wearily  on. 

But  to  the  ear  the  war  was  a  terrible  reality,  a 
terrific  fact,  for  the  noise  was  so  deafening  that  it 
seemed  as  if  one's  ear-drums  would  burst.  Short, 
fat  howitzers,  long  120s,  thin-nosed  as  greyhounds, 
220s,  all  mouth,  vomiting  their  big  shells  high  into 
the  air,  hidden  in  the  ruined  houses  of  the  village 
or  banked  in  tiers  up  the  hillslopes,  belched  and 
barked  and  thundered. 

Keyed  up  with  all  this  din  and  excitement,  I 
climbed  among  these  guns  toward  the  top  of  the 
hill.  Cannons  above  me  fired  and  recoiled;  others 
below  shot  their  hissing  shells  up  over  my  head; 
red  tongues  of  flame,  like  those  of  a  blast  furnace, 
leaped  for  an  instant  from  the  muzzles  followed 
by  wisps  of  bluish  smoke. 

[  164  ] 


BEFORE  MONTFAUCON 

When  I  reached  the  summit  of  the  hill,  all  beyond 
lay  wrapped  in  an  impenetrable  mist.  The  men 
had  stepped  out  of  the  trenches  but  were  momentarily 
expecting  a  counter-barrage.  Then  we  were  all 
ordered  off  the  crest  of  the  hill  and  I  returned  to 
Esnes,  where  the  wounded  and  prisoners  were  al- 
ready beginning  to  filter  in.  The  first  Boche  to 
arrive  was  a  scared-looking  youth  of  nineteen,  who 
was  quickly  hustled  off  in  a  side-car  to  be  questioned. 
Then  they  began  to  arrive  in  groups,  but  not  in  any 
such  numbers  as  at  the  beginning  of  the  St.  Mihiel 
attack — a  sure  proof  that  this  was  no  "walk-over," 
and  that  the  resistance  was  stiff. 

Later  in  the  morning  I  again  climbed  Hill  304, 
and  this  time  was  able  to  go  on  over  its  crest 
until  I  could  look  out  toward  the  hills  and  valleys 
that  lie  beyond.  It  was  a  wonderful  spectacle  that 
lay  spread  before  me,  and,  fascinated,  I  spent  the 
remainder  of  the  day  wandering  about,  sketching 
and  watching  it. 

The  bare  hilltop  on  which  I  stood  commanded 
an  almost  unbroken  view  over  a  vast  stretch  of  coun- 
try quite  devoid  of  any  cover,  absolutely  denuded 
of  trees  or  any  growing  thing,  but  pitted  with  shell- 
holes  and  fragments  of  wrecked  trenches,  the  ground 

[165] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

falling  abruptly  away  down  into  a  valley  where  lay 
the  ruined  village  of  Malancourt.  To  the  right 
spread  the  bleak  expanse  of  Le  Mort- Homme, 
ravaged  and  desolate — a  place  whose  memories 
are  as  tragic  as  its  name.  To  the  left,  however, 
some  large  patches  of  woods  remained  where  the 
Bois  de  Malancourt  joined  the  Bois  de  Montfaucon 
that  lay  beyond;  while  in  the  centre  of  this  vast 
panorama,  perched  on  its  lofty  hill  about  four  miles 
away,  rose  Montfaucon  itself,  the  proud  eagle's 
nest  from  which  the  Kaiser  watched  the  battles 
about  Verdun. 

When  I  first  arrived  upon  the  scene,  the  Germans 
were  still  in  the  Bois  de  Malancourt,  and  Malan- 
court itself  was  just  being  "mopped  up."  A  French 
battery  of  75s  was  taking  up  position  in  a  field 
near  by,  and  I  joined  its  officers,  who  had  a  powerful 
pair  of  glasses  mounted  on  a  tripod,  so  that,  when 
the  battery  opened  fire,  we  could  watch  its  shells 
burst  in  the  woods,  where  the  rat-tat-tat  of  the  enemy 
machine-guns  was  uninterrupted. 

Then,  as  the  day  wore  on  and  the  Bois  de  Malan- 
court was  cleaned  up,  I  could  see,  with  beating  heart, 
our  troops  emerge  from  these  woods  and  start  across 

[166] 


BEFORE  MONTFAUCON 

the  open  to  attack  the  Bois  de  Montfaucon  beyond. 
Little  khaki-colored  toys  they  looked  like,  scattered 
out  in  open  formation,  just  as  I  had  seen  them  months 
before  down  in  Alsace,  training  for  a  day  like  this, 
disappearing  under  the  cover  of  any  depression  or 
shrubbery  that  they  could  find,  then  reappearing 
at  the  sound  of  a  whistle,  half-rising  or  crawling 
on  ahead. 

And  then  a  thrill  went  up  my  spine  as  I  saw  the 
tanks  come  out,  strange  lumbering  creatures,  crawl- 
ing one  after  another,  Indian  file,  rocking  like  ships 
in  a  heavy  sea,  but  steadily  creeping  forward  on 
their  caterpillar  feet  toward  the  machine-gun  nests 
hidden  in  the  woods,  that  are  their  special  prey. 
Shells  with  a  lurid,  saffron-colored  smoke — the  new 
antitank  explosive — began  to  burst  over  them,  and 
I  could  plainly  see  the  hail  of  molten  lead  that  shot 
directly  downward  from  the  ball  of  ruddy  smoke. 

While  the  battery  of  guns  beside  me  kept  up  its 
infernal  din,  regular,  sharp,  deafening  as  the  beats 
of  giant  sledge-hammers  on  an  anvil,  every  once 
in  a  while  a  prodigious  roar  and  rattling  would  pass 
overhead  as  a  huge  shell  from  the  guns  behind  us 
cleft  the  air.     As  Its  shrill  whistling  died  away  a 

[  167] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

moment  later,  a  cloud  of  salmon-colored  smoke 
mingled  with  debris  and  stones  arose  from  the  hill 
of  Montfaucon  opposite,  drifting  away  finally  on 
the  afternoon  breeze.  The  "big  boy"  had  done 
his  work. 

The  day  was  filled  with  incidents.  At  one  time 
I  found  myself  talking  with  Captain  Homer  St. 
Gaudens,  whom  I  had  not  seen  since  I  discussed 
camouflage  with  him  nearly  a  year  before  up  in  the 
Cornish  Hills  and  who  was  wounded  in  the  head 
only  fifteen  minutes  after  he  left  me.  At  another 
time  my  attention  was  attracted  by  the  rare  sight 
of  a  French  colonel,  whose  blue  uniform  was  con- 
spicuous among  so  much  kliaki,  and  I  watched  the 
progress  of  our  troops  with  him  and  heard  his  praise 
of  them.  He  proved  to  be  the  Chief  of  Staff  of  Gen- 
eral Gouraud's  army,  and  with  him  was  his  liaison 
officer.  Major  Bryan,  who  afterward  gave  me  a 
remarkable  series  of  photographs  of  the  most  im- 
portant sectors  of  the  American  Front — pictures 
that  I  treasure  highly  as  precious  documents  of  the 
war. 

After  months  of  peering  through  periscopes  or 
peeping  furtively  over  trench  parapets,  it  seemed 

[168] 


BEFORE   MONTFAUCON 

strange  Indeed  to  stand  thus  in  the  open  and  watch 
even  a  fraction — though  it  was  an  important  one — 
of  the  greatest  offensive  in  history. 

As  the  afternoon  wore  on  I  could  see  our  infantry, 
supported  by  the  tanks,  work  its  way,  despite  the 
machine-guns,  across  the  open  spaces  and  finally 
penetrate  into  the  Montfaucon  Woods  beyond, 
while,  far  over  to  the  right,  in  front  of  Bethincourt 
and  Le  Mort-Homme,  other  regiments  could  be 
seen  advancing — mere  tiny  specks.  Quite  near  at 
hand,  coming  up  over  the  crest  of  the  hill  on  which 
I  stood,  our  field-artillery  was  being  brought  up  to 
support  our  advance.  Under  the  wheels  of  guns 
and  caissons  the  engineers  were  shovelling  loose 
stone  and  ballast  to  keep  the  precious  pieces  from 
miring.  Behind  the  artillery  followed  the  ammuni- 
tion-trains and  the  quartermaster's  vans  filled  with 
supplies  —  all  the  pressure  of  men  and  transport 
attacking  in  the  open,  converging  from  all  sides  upon 
Montfaucon,  their  main  objective  in  this  sector,  the 
whole  forming  a  panoramic  picture  we  had  never 
been  able  to  see  before  in  this  war. 


[169] 


n 
THE  ROAD  TO  VARENNES 

NEXT  day  we  decided  to  go  over  Into  an- 
other sector  and  see  what  was  happening 
on  the  road  to  Varennes. 
As  far  as  Neuvilly  we  had  no  difficulty,  finding 
the  roads  quite  free  from  traffic.  Neuvilly  itself 
tempted  us  to  linger,  for  it  was  very  picturesque. 
Its  ancient  houses  are,  for  the  most  part,  of  half- 
timbered  construction,  the  spaces  between  the  beams 
being  filled  in  with  plaster  and  mud  spread  on  heavy 
laths.  The  concussions  of  the  various  bombard- 
ments had  blown  all  this  mud-filling  out,  so  that 
only  the  timber-work  was  left  to  support  the  red- 
tiled  roofs  that  remained  fairly  intact  though  the 
walls  that  held  them  up  were  open  to  the  four  winds 
of  heaven. 

In  these  airy  billets,  through  which  the  cold  au- 
tumn breezes  swept  at  will,  our  men  were  quartered, 

[  170] 


THE  ROAD  TO  VARENNES 

gathered,  with  their  animals,  round  fireplaces  still 
intact  but  practically  out-of-doors. 

A  mile  or  two  beyond  Neuvilly  we  struck  the 
traffic,  a  jam  such  as  I  had  never  seen  before,  the 
road  for  miles  being  blocked  with  a  triple  line  of 
vehicles  of  every  description.  I  saw  colonels  and 
even  a  brigadier-general  on  foot  in  the  road,  acting 
as  "traffic  cops,"  directing,  swearing,  "bawling  out'* 
every  officer  in  sight,  but  the  blockade  never 
budged. 

It  was  a  very  serious  matter,  too,  for  the  ammuni- 
tion couldn't  get  through  to  feed  the  guns  up  front 
nor  could  the  wounded  be  brought  back  to  the  hos- 
pitals, while  at  any  moment  the  enemy  might  open 
up  his  batteries  on  the  congested  road  and  do  fear- 
ful execution.  A  regiment  of  negro  engineers  was 
hard  at  work  strengthening  the  road,  and  as  we 
sat  in  these  serious  surroundings  that  might  at  any 
moment  become  positively  calamitous,  the  lilt  of 
darky  voices  was  ever  in  our  ears,  and  this  is  what 
I  heard  come  floating  in  the  window: 

"Slow  !  Ah  should  say  he  was  slow;  he's  as  slow 
as  a  snail !  You  know  'bout  de  woman  what  had 
a  sick  husband  and  nobody  to  send  for  a  doctor? 

[171] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

Well,  she  thought  o'  the  snail  an'  she  sent  him  off 
an*  she  waited  for  fo'  year  an'  nobody  came.  So 
she  went  out  to  see  what  on  earth  had  happened 
to  de  snail.  She  found  him  by  the  garden-gate, 
'bout  half-way  to  the  road,  an'  she  said:  'You  ole 
lazy  animal !  Don't  you  know  mah  husband's  sick 
an'  dat  I'se  waited  fo'  years  fo'  de  doctor.^  Get 
up  an'  hustle,  you  ole  lazy  thing;  is  this  all  the  far 
you  got.^'  An'  de  snail  he  looks  up  an'  says:  *If 
you  don't  quit  your  talkin',  ah  won't  go  at  all !'  " 

Finally,  like  the  old  woman,  tired  of  waiting,  we 
got  out  and  went  ahead  on  foot.  Then  we  found 
the  principal  reason  for  the  congestion  in  the  road: 
a  gigantic  mine  crater,  more  than  a  hundred  and 
fifty  feet  long  and  forty  wide,  that  completely  cut 
the  road  in  two.  A  new  roadway  was  being  made 
around  it,  but  the  artillery,  in  spite  of  straining 
horses  and  sweating  men,  was  mired  in  it  and  could 
not  be  extricated,  for  the  weather  having  changed 
the  night  before,  the  rain  had  softened  the  earth 
and  made  it  spongy  and  slippery. 

Fields  of  wire,  shell-holes  filled  with  water,  quag- 
mires, rank  grass,  and  a  few  blasted  trees — these 
were  the  objects  that  composed  the  tragic  landscape 

[  172  ] 


THE   ROAD  TO  VARENNES 

across  which,  by  muddy  side-roads,  Hke  ants  toward 
an  ant-hill,  crept  long  lines  of  horse-drawn  vehicles, 
diminutive,  almost  lost  in  the  vastness  of  the  desert 
waste.  Off  to  the  east  rose  the  sinister  slopes  of 
the  Vauquois,  denuded,  stripped  of  their  forests, 
ravaged  and  ploughed  up  by  shells  and  high  ex- 
plosives, with  the  old  French  and  German  j&rst-line 
trenches  running  almost  side  by  side  up  and  over 
their  summit.  To  the  westward  the  heights  of  the 
Argonne,  rocky  and  precipitous,  succeeded  each 
other,  hill  after  hill,  from  the  southern  horizon  to 
the  northern,  green  and  densely  wooded,  save  for 
the  portion  that  had  lain  so  long  between  the  enemy 
lines — the  portion  where  the  trees  had  been  reaped 
as  with  a  giant  sickle,  only  the  stumps  standing 
like  the  stubble  in  a  wheat-field. 

In  the  woods  to  the  north,  dense  and  apparently 
so  peaceful,  the  sharp  voices  of  the  machine-guns 
were  incessant,  plainly  marking  the  area  where  our 
men  were  trying  to  clean  out  the  treacherous  forest. 
I  watched  some  German  prisoners  dig  a  grave  and 
bury  one  of  their  comrades  on  a  hillslope  while  a 
sergeant  read  a  simple  prayer. 

Then  I  picked  my  way  through  the  traffic  on  the 

[173] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

road  until  I  reached  the  bridge  before  Boureuilles 
which  the  engineers  had  just  finished  repairing. 
As  the  result  of  incessant  effort,  the  road  had  been 
cleared  enough  to  permit  the  ambulances  to  come 
through  filled  with  our  wounded,  quiet,  courageous, 
after  hours  of  waiting  and  exposure,  some  sitting 
up,  others  lying  prone,  motionless,  with  only  a  hand 
or  foot,  stained  with  blood,  protruding  from  the 
army  blanket  that  covered  them. 

Boureuilles  itself  was  razed  to  the  ground  and 
honeycombed  with  wrecked  trenches,  destroyed  by 
our  barrage  and  just  abandoned  by  the  enemy. 
Some  of  our  tanks  were  still  crawling  about  it, 
moving  farther  up  over  the  narrow-gauge  tracks 
that  afforded  them  better  support  than  the  road- 
way. 

Only  two  kilometres  beyond  Boureuilles  lies 
Varennes,  the  old  town  in  which  Louis  XVI,  after 
he  was  recognized  in  Ste.  Menehould  by  the  dragoon 
Drouet,  was  arrested  as  he  was  attempting  to  escape 
into  Germany,  and  taken  back  to  Paris  to  be  tried. 
Now  the  ancient  place  was  smashed  to  bits.  The 
fine  old  stone  dwellings  on  its  main  street  were  but 
piles  of  broken  rock;    at  a  carrefour,  a  Virgin  still 

[174] 


THE  ROAD  TO  VARENNES 

stood  in  a  blue  niche,  but  the  chapel  that  she  be- 
longed to  had  completely  disappeared. 

In  a  square  some  forty  or  fifty  of  our  tanks  were 
gathered,  multicolored  in  their  gaudy  camouflage, 
wallowing  around  in  the  sticky  mud,  half  hidden 
under  the  mangled  trees  that,  clipped  and  prim, 
had  once  shaded  the  pretty  place.  Our  troops  had 
just  taken  the  town  and  had  moved  on  a  bit  beyond 
it,  but  it  was  teeming  with  activity.  The  unburied 
dead  lay  in  the  streets.  The  dressing-stations  were 
crowded  and  groups  of  prisoners  kept  filtering 
through  on  their  way  to  the  rear.  The  roar  of  the 
artillery  was  very  close  and  sharp,  and  the  rattle 
of  the  musketry  and  of  the  machine-guns  over  in 
the  forest  where  the  Seventy-Seventh  was  trying 
to  dislodge  the  Boche  was  incessant  and  insistent. 

After  its  initial  push  forward,  our  Argonne  offen- 
sive moved  slowly,  for  it  encountered  the  bitterest 
opposition.  One  hard  fight  succeeded  another. 
Through  one  cold  night  after  another  our  infantry 
camped  in  the  open,  wet  and  freezing,  sheltered 
only  by  their  pup-tents  and  exposed  to  a  continuous 
harassing  fire  from  the  enemy's  artillery.  Slow  and 
steady  progress  was  being  made,  to  be  sure,  but  only 

[  175  ] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

by  "paying  the  price,"  for  we  were  up  against  the 
main  Hindenburg  positions  defended  by  picked  and 
veteran  troops. 

At  the  end  of  the  first  few  days  we  went  back 
to  Rarecourt,  where  our  First  Army  Corps  had  its 
headquarters,  and  I  found  shelter  in  a  deserted  room 
behind  the  Graves  Registration  Bureau  (a  cheerful 
neighborhood),  a  chamber  devoid  of  any  furnishings 
but  containing  a  placard  with  a  broken  door 
from  which  various  articles  of  feminine  apparel — 
sordid  dresses  and  hats  trimmed  with  bedraggled 
feathers — insisted  on  emerging  at  most  unexpected 
intervals.  In  this  cheerful  place  I  set  up  my  cot 
(which,  as  the  fine  season  was  now  over,  I  was  be- 
ginning to  use),  and  made  myself  as  comfortable 
as  the  fireless  fireplace  and  leaky  ceiling  would  per- 
mit. 

And  from  Rarecourt  I  proceeded  to  make  my 
various  sketching  trips.  Rain  and  slush;  mud  and 
dirt;  my  paper  wet  and  soggy,  my  hands  numb  with 
cold — these  were  the  conditions,  none  too  propitious 
for  sketching,  that  obtained  in  the  Argonne  in  Oc- 
tober. 

I  spent  a  couple  of  soaking  days  in  and  around 

[176] 


c 


THE  ROAD  TO  VARENNES 

Montfaucon,  drawing  the  remains  of  the  formidable 
German  defenses.  From  the  slits  of  the  P.  C.'s 
I  looked  out  over  the  grim  wastes  of  Hill  304  and 
Le  Mort-Homme  and  saw  the  same  tragic  land- 
scapes that  the  Kaiser  and  his  son  must  have  seen 
as  they  watched  the  heroic  defense  of  Verdun.  I 
ploughed  through  the  mud  that  was  ankle-deep  in 
the  old  German  trenches.  Heavy  clouds,  thickly 
charged  with  moisture,  drove  low  over  the  lofty 
hilltop  and  swept  the  ruined  arches  of  the  martyred 
church  with  their  misty  filaments.  The  clipped 
trees  of  the  Place  de  I'Eglise,  once  neatly  trimmed 
and  umbrageous,  now  stood  like  charred  skeletons, 
reaching  out  their  bony  arms,  leafless  and  branch- 
less, in  gestures  of  mute  despair  and  ardent  sup- 
plication. 

On  other  days,  with  Captain  Duncan,  I  explored 
the  woods  and  deep  recesses  round  Very  and  Cheppy, 
veritable  fortresses  captured  only  after  epic  combats 
by  the  men  of  the  Thirty-Fifth,  who,  under  their 
baptism  of  fire,  succeeded  in  driving  the  veteran 
Second  Guard  Division  of  Berlin  from  these  strong- 
holds. 

Later,  we  pushed  on  as  far  as  Cierges  and  Brieulles- 

[  177] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

sur-Meuse,  also  scenes  of  fierce  fighting,  and  up  the 
valley  of  the  Aire,  following  the  slow  progress  of 
our  troops  as  far  as  Apremont,  Chatel-Chehery, 
and  Exermont.  But  farther  it  was  impossible  to 
go,  for,  for  a  long  time,  that  is  until  October  20, 
the  advance  of  our  army  was  checked  along  this 
line  by  the  obstinate  defense  of  the  main  German 
positions  in  the  Argonne,  the  pivotal  hinge  upon 
which  the  safety  of  their  entire  line  depended,  the 
vital  spot  that  must  be  defended  to  the  very  last. 
And  when  under  our  pressure  it  did  break,  their 
whole  line  crumbled  and  the  war  was  at  an  end. 


[178] 


Ill 
THE  ARMISTICE  AND  SEDAN 

EE  in  October  the  "flu"  laid  me  low,  and 
at  the  end  of  the  month  I  was  sent  down 
to  Fontainebleau  for  a  period  of  rest  and 
convalescence.  And  that  is  why  I  was  in  Paris  and 
not  at  the  front  for  the  signing  of  the  armistice.  At 
the  time  I  regretted  that  this  was  the  case,  but  now 
I  am  glad  that  I  lived  through  those  two  wonderful 
days  in  Paris. 

I  came  up  to  the  city  on  Sunday,  the  10th,  fully 
realizing  what  was  going  to  happen.  The  boule- 
vards were  thronged  with  a  great  calm  crowd.  I 
took  a  seat  in  the  afternoon  on  the  terrasse  of  the 
Cafe  de  la  Paix.  At  the  tables  about  me  were  of- 
ficers of  every  one  of  the  allied  nations:  French, 
American  and  English,  Portuguese,  Canadians  and 
Australians;  Serbs,  Belgians,  Poles,  and  Italians. 
The  civilians  were  dressed  for  the  most  part  in  black 
or  sombre  colors  but  not  in  mourning.     Venders 

[179] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

with  push-carts  filled  with  flags  were  doing  a  thriv- 
ing business,  but  there  was  otherwise  no  outward 
sign  of  excitement. 

The  Place  de  la  Concorde  presented  a  more  stir- 
ring spectacle.  Coy se vox'  horses  and  figures  that 
stand  at  the  entrance  to  the  Tuileries  Gardens  and 
the  Champs  Elysees,  precious  works  of  art  that  had 
been  protected  by  sand-bags  during  the  bombard- 
ments, were  now  further  embellished  with  strings 
of  Boche  helmets  that  hung  over  them  arranged 
in  symmetrical  designs.  The  terraces  that  over- 
look the  Place  were  lined  with  captured  planes 
of  every  type  and  description — Fokkers,  Rumplers 
and  other  Taubes,  and  the  big  black  Gothas  and 
bombing-planes  that  had  terrorized  Paris  at  night 
for  so  long  a  period.  Around  the  obelisk  and  the 
fountains  that  decorate  the  centre  of  the  square,  big 
guns  of  all  calibers,  trophies  of  the  last  offensives, 
pointed  their  grim  noses  toward  heaven,  encircled 
by  armies  of  smaller  pieces — 37s,  77s,  trench-mortars 
and  minnenwerfers — over  which  the  children  were 
climbing  and  sporting.  A  dense  crowd  packed  the 
square,  gazing  with  evident  satisfaction  at  these 
varied  trophies,  and  especially  at  the  captured  tank, 

[180] 


THE  ARMISTICE  AND  SEDAN 

decorated  with  its  Iron  Cross,  that  stood  at  the 
entrance  to  the  Tuileries  Gardens.  The  statues  of 
Lille  and  Strasbourg,  so  long  in  mourning,  were  now 
gayly  decorated  with  flags  and  wreaths. 

On  the  following  morning,  Monday,  the  11th  of 
November,  I  stepped  out  on  a  balcony  near  the 
Arc  de  Triomphe  and  beheld  the  city  lying  spread 
beneath  me,  its  familiar  domes  and  towers — the 
Pantheon,  the  Invalides,  Notre  Dame,  Sacre  Coeur — 
plainly  visible  though  enveloped  in  a  bluish  mist. 
In  a  hospital  yard  just  below  some  wounded  sol- 
diers were  playing  at  ten-pins.  Otherwise  there 
was  no  sign  of  war,  and  the  streets  were  as  quiet 
as  they  had  been  during  the  last  few  weeks. 

The  morning  paper  brought  no  definite  news.  A 
little  later  I  went  down-town  and  to  the  oflSce  of 
my  department  in  the  Rue  Ste.  Anne.  There  I  was 
told  that  the  armistice  had  been  signed  at  5  a.  m. 
and  was  to  take  effect  at  eleven.  I  looked  at  my 
watch.    It  stood  at  eleven-ten.    The  war  was  over ! 

WTien  I  went  out  into  the  street  again,  the  news 
was  just  leaking  out.  An  American  oflScer  was  plac- 
ing flags  on  Fremiet's  statue  of  Jeanne  d'Arc  that 
stands  before  the  Red  Cross  Headquarters  in  the 

[181] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

Rue  de  Rivoli;  the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  centre  of 
all  Paris  excitements,  was  fast  filling  with  a  joyful 
crowd  and  with  students  singing  before  the  statue 
of  Strasbourg.  In  the  Rue  Royale,  flags,  held  in 
readiness,  were  appearing  at  every  window  as  if 
by  magic. 

We  took  a  table  for  luncheon  by  the  window  of 
a  restaurant  fronting  on  this  street.  Next  to  us 
sat  six  French  officers  watching  the  growing  crowds 
as  intently  as  we  were.  A  troop  of  chasseurs  d'Afrique 
came  up  the  street  mounted  on  Arab  horses — "du 
Fromentin,"  as  one  of  the  French  ofiicers  expressed 
it — looking  exceedingly  picturesque  in  their  pale- 
blue  tunics  and  red  fezes,  with  their  captain  salut- 
ing at  their  head  and  bowing  to  the  acclamations 
of  the  people.  Grizzled  veterans,  in  battered  hel- 
mets and  uniforms  faded  by  years  of  campaigning, 
were  singled  out  of  the  crowds,  hoisted  on  youthful 
shoulders  and,  drapeau  en  tete,  borne  careering  down 
the  boulevard.  Others  seized  the  smaller  cannon 
from  the  Place  de  la  Concorde  and,  cheering,  pushed 
them  through  the  crowd. 

American  motors  and  camions,  filled  with  dough- 
boys clinging  on  like  bees  in  a  swarm,  came  roaring 

[182] 


THE  ARMISTICE  AND  SEDAN 

down  the  street,  back-firing  with  a  noise  Hke  giant 
mitrailleuses.  The  crowds  grew  ever  denser  and 
soldiers,  soldiers  were  everywhere.  I  distinctly 
remember  one  group:  an  Australian,  a  "Tommy,'* 
a  French  sailor,  a  Yank,  and  an  Italian,  arm  in  arm, 
each  carrying  the  flag  of  his  own  country,  an  in- 
spiring sight,  a  living  picture  of  "The  Allies."  Fac- 
tory girls  and  midinettes  mixed  freely  with  the  men 
and  were  hoisted  bodily  upon  the  motor-trucks  that 
now  were  wreathed  with  swathes  of  bunting,  not 
draped  with  care,  but  thrown  loosely  round  the 
unwieldy  vehicles  piled  high  with  soldiers,  the  top- 
most man  holding  a  big  flag  aloft,  that  the  breeze 
held  stiff  and  taut.  Then  some  Australians  came 
down  the  boulevard  headed  by  their  band. 

Ah,  the  music,  that  was  what  was  needed — what 
we  wanted !  But  there  was  little  of  it  and  little 
cheering — and  no  brazen  noises  like  those  we  make 
at  home.  Underlying  the  joy  that  the  long  night- 
mare was  over,  I  distinctly  felt  an  undercurrent  of 
sadness,  pain  at  the  thought  of  all  the  dear  ones 
who  were  gone  forever  and  could  not  be  there  to 
share  the  hour  of  rejoicing;  vivid  recollections  of 
years  of  anguish  that  could  not  be  dimmed  even  in 

[183] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

this,  their  hour  of  triumph.  And  when,  as  I  saw  on 
several  occasions,  a  group  of  wounded  came  along — 
grands  blesses  from  the  Paris  hospitals,  armless, 
legless,  or  sightless — the  crowd  opened  reverently 
and  silently,  and  with  respect  made  passage  for 
them  to  pass. 

We  made  our  way  up  the  jammed  boulevard  and 
stepped  out  upon  the  balcony  of  a  big  oflSce  that 
we  know  that  fronts  on  the  Place  de  I'Opera.  The 
brown-gold  trees,  the  gray  houses,  and  the  Opera 
itself,  with  Carpeaux's  Dance  hidden  behind  sand- 
bags covered  with  war  posters,  served  as  a  back- 
ground to  a  solid  mass  of  humanity,  black  for  the 
most  part,  but  thickly  sprinkled  with  spots  of  blue 
and  khaki,  josthng,  joking,  good-humoredly  push- 
ing, seething  up  from  the  Metro  like  ants  from 
an  ant-hill.  Motors,  ambulances,  and  buses  slowly 
and  painfully  pushed  their  way  through,  but  the 
crowd  that,  grudgingly,  opened  to  afford  them  pas- 
sage, closed  behind  them  again  like  a  river  behind 
a  moving  barge. 

Then,  suddenly,  we  heard  a  mighty  humming 
in  the  air  and  a  great  Handley-Page  came  sailing 
majestically  overhead.    In  an  instant  a  clamor  arose 

[184] 


THE  ARMISTICE  AND  SEDAN 

and  the  whole  place  turned  pink  as  every  face  in 
the  crowd  was  turned  upward  to  watch  the  great 
bird  fly  magnificently  across  the  sky.  .  .  . 

On  the  day  following  the  signing  of  the  armistice, 
I  returned  to  General  Headquarters,  where  I  found 
that  the  joy  attending  this  great  event  was  not  as 
great  as  might  have  been  expected,  and  for  reasons 
easy  to  guess. 

Anxious  to  visit  and  sketch  the  scenes  connected 
with  the  last  combats  of  the  war,  I  set  out  a  few 
days  later  with  Captain  Andre  Smith  for  Clermont- 
en-Argonne  and  thence  to  Varennes.  From  this 
point  we  followed  up  the  valley  of  the  Aire,  this 
time  passing  through  Chateau  Chehery,  and  on  to 
Fleville  and  St.  Juvin,  that  we  had  been  unable  to 
reach  before.  All  these  places  had  suffered  severely 
in  the  recent  fighting,  as  the  Americans  had  slowly 
pushed  up  on  one  side  of  the  Argonne  while  the 
French  pushed  up  on  the  other,  squeezing  the  Boche 
and  his  machine-guns  out  of  the  depths  of  the  forest, 
and  aiming  to  effect  their  junction  at  Grandpre,  a 
considerable  town  situated  at  the  extreme  north 
end  of  the  Argonne  Forest. 

[185] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

As  we  approached  Grandpre,  the  deadly  effects 
of  our  fierce  barrage  as  well  as  the  accuracy  of  its 
aim  were  everywhere  apparent.  The  fields  at  each 
side  of  the  road  were  pockmarked  with  shell-holes 
often  so  close  together  that  they  overlapped,  yet 
the  road  itself  was  almost  uninjured,  spared  to  allow 
our  advancing  columns  to  utilize  it. 

The  outskirts  of  the  town  were  smashed  to  pieces, 
where  the  Germans  had  put  up  their  main  defense. 
But  in  the  place  where  our  camions  were  standing 
the  houses  were  less  injured  and  the  conspicuous 
church  spire  rose  intact  above  them. 

When  we  asked  for  a  billet  we  were  told  to  choose 
anything  that  we  could  find,  so  picked  out  an  airy 
chamber  with  three  good  walls,  doorless  and  partly 
roofless  in  the  Kronprinzstrasse,  for  all  the  streets 
still  bore  their  German  names.  The  wind  was  sharp 
and  chill;  the  air  damp  and  cold.  We  went  to  mess 
at  the  *' chateau,"  an  ugly  modern  villa  of  some 
pretention,  and  found  our  oflficers  gathered  there  for 
supper  in  the  open  (there  being  no  room  in  the 
house),  their  only  shelter  a  tarpaulin  under  which 
the  wind  howled  and  whistled  at  will. 

We  all  gulped  down  our  meal  as  quickly  as  pos- 

[186] 


THE  ARMISTICE  AND  SEDAN 

sible,  for  the  food  chilled  in  an  instant.  Opposite 
me  sat  a  French  civilian  who,  they  told  me,  had  ar- 
rived that  afternoon  to  dig  up  some  money  and 
valuables  that  had  been  buried  in  the  garden 
when  the  villa  was  abandoned  four  years  before. 
When  this  man  found  that  I  could  speak  French 
(none  of  the  other  oflficers  had  happened  to  be  able 
to  do  so)  he  fairly  exploded,  all  his  pent-up  feelings 
bursting  forth  in  a  perfect  torrent  of  words. 

He  was,  it  seemed,  the  owner  of  this  Villa  Mar- 
guerite, and  this  was  his  first  visit  to  it  since  he  left 
it  in  1914.  It  had  meanwhile  been  an  important 
German  Headquarters  and,  though  battered  by 
the  recent  bombardment,  was  in  fairly  good  con- 
dition. The  Boches  had  systematically  robbed  it 
of  everything,  even  including  most  of  the  furniture, 
"modern  stuff,"  its  proprietor  remarked  rather  dis- 
dainfully, "but,"  he  added  gleefully,  "they  left 
two  splendid  ancient  armoires,  treasures  that  I 
specially  prized,  the  only  really  valuable  pieces  of 
furniture  that  I  possessed.  Ah,  vraiment.  Us  n'ont 
aucun  gout,  ces  Boches  T^ 

After  supper,  as  we  were  sitting  round  the  hot 
stove  in  the  dismantled  living-room,  trying  to  warm 

[  187] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

our  chilled  bones,  one  of  the  officers  asked  him  if 
he  would  like  to  see  the  abri  that  the  Germans  had 
dug  in  his  garden.  ''Ah,  out,''  indeed  he  would, 
and,  excited  again,  he  was  led  down  into  the  cellar 
where  a  crowd  of  negro  pioneers  were  huddled  round 
a  stove.  As  we  passed  the  broken  door  of  the  wine- 
cellar  which  the  Germans  had  cleaned  up  years  be- 
fore, he  said,  with  a  sigh,  "If  only  my  cellar  were  as 
it  once  was,  I  could  warm  you  with  some  of  the  best 
wine  in  France." 

A  door  opening  from  a  dark  corner  led  us  into  a 
passage  about  eighty  feet  long,  neatly  boxed  in  with 
planks,  and  this  passage  was  prolonged  by  another 
even  longer,  running  at  right  angles  to  it,  and  then 
by  a  third  about  fifty  feet  long.  This  last  terminated 
in  a  lofty  underground  chamber,  faced  up  with  brick, 
some  twelve  feet  square  and  about  thirty  feet  high, 
roofed,  they  told  us,  with  six  feet  of  concrete.  Niches 
were  arranged  in  its  walls  for  cots  and  certainly, 
in  them,  even  under  the  heaviest  bombardments, 
officers  could  sleep  in  peace  and  safety. 

As  we  opened  the  door  into  it,  six  big  negroes 
sprang  to  their  feet.  The  table  before  them  was 
absolutely  empty;   a  single  candle  showed  only  their 

[188] 


THE  ARMISTICE  AND  SEDAN 

rolling  eyes  and  glistening  teeth  and  their  hands 
raised  to  their  foreheads  in  salute.  "Craps,"  said 
the  officers.  A  lieutenant,  without  a  word,  seized 
the  candle,  snuffed  it,  put  it  in  his  pocket,  and  we 
left  the  culprits  to  grope  their  way  back  in  the 
darkness. 

Our  host  was  evidently  delighted  with  this  under- 
ground chamber,  with  this  latest  addition  to  his 
property.  "What  a  souvenir  of  the  war !"  he  cried, 
"What  will  my  wife  say  when  I  show  it  to  her — 
and  my  friends.^"  And  later  he  remarked  reflec- 
tively, "I'm  glad  the  Americans  gave  me  back  my 
home.  I  am  very  grateful  and  shall  always  cherish 
their  souvenir.  This  afternoon  I  found  the  graves 
of  two  of  your  men  down  by  the  little  stream  below 
my  house.  I  shall  always  care  for  them  as  if  they 
were  the  graves  of  my  own  sons;  they  shall  never 
lack  for  flowers." 

When  we  returned  to  our  airy  billet  it  was  freez- 
ing, and  when  we  looked  out  in  the  early  morning 
the  streets  were  coated  with  thick  ice  and  the  wheel- 
tracks  glistened  like  bands  of  polished  steel.  A  bit- 
ing north  wind  added  to  the  discomfort  and  chilled 
the  hot  cakes  at  breakfast  before  we  could  get  them 

[  189  ] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

into  our  mouths.  It  was  the  first  real  touch  of  winter 
and  the  negro  troops  looked  as  unhappy  as  they 
doubtless  felt,  stamping  their  feet  and  slapping  their 
sides  in  their  efforts  to  keep  up  a  circulation. 

Our  purpose  that  day  was  to  go  as  far  north  as 
we  could  and  see  the  extreme  limit  attained  by  our 
troops — the  culmination  of  their  superhuman  efforts 
in  the  Argonne — and  reach,  if  possible,  Sedan,  the 
historic  place  that  had  spelled  "defeat"  to  the 
French  in  1870  and  "victory"  in  1918. 

We  had  read  in  the  papers  that  the  Americans 
had  taken  Sedan  the  day  before  the  armistice  was 
signed,  so  expected,  of  course,  to  find  it  filled  with 
our  soldiery.  By  the  map  we  had  only  forty-five 
kilometres  to  go.  So  we  took  it  leisurely  at  first, 
stopping  in  Buzancy  to  sketch  the  crossroad  that 
had  been  such  an  important  centre  behind  the  Ger- 
man lines,  and  that  still  was  marked  with  all  its 
great  sign-boards. 

Thence  we  proceeded  by  a  lonely  road  through 
the  Forest  of  Dieulet,  that  had  figured  so  prominently 
in  the  latest  communiques,  and  that  was  torn  and 
lacerated  by  shell-fire.  At  La  Besace  we  made  a 
detour  through  the  icy  streets  to  avoid  an  enormous 

[  190  ] 


P3 


tw 


THE  ARMISTICE  AND  SEDAN 

mine-crater  that  blocked  the  road.  Tenaciously  we 
kept  on,  despite  a  road  furrowed  by  the  heavy  traJBSc 
of  the  retreating  Germans,  then  frozen  by  the  biting 
north  wind,  until  we  reached  Raucourt,  where  a 
regiment  of  French  Colonials  were  marching  through 
the  town — the  first  troops  we  had  seen  since  leaving 
Buzancy. 

From  Raucourt  we  followed  down  a  pretty  little 
valley  that  led  toward  the  Meuse.  White  flags  were 
nailed  to  the  church-towers  and  to  the  tall  factory 
chimneys.  The  villagers  who  had  remained  in  their 
homes  during  the  long  German  occupation  came 
to  their  doorways  as  they  heard  the  sound  of  our 
motor,  and  watched  us  curiously  as  we  went  by. 
But  the  road  itself  was  absolutely  deserted,  except 
that,  here  and  there,  we  met  a  family  group  pushing 
a  baby-carriage  or  a  small  cart  filled  with  their  scant 
belongings,  as  they  returned  to  homes  that  had  been 
abandoned  years  before.  Beyond  Remilly's  pic- 
turesque church,  we  could  look  down  into  the  Meuse 
Valley.  But  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill,  where  the 
road  we  had  been  following  joins  the  main  highway 
that  skirts  the  river,  a  huge  chasm  yawned  before 
us,  another  mine-crater  whose  explosion  had  shat- 

[191] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

tered  all  the  houses  round  about  and  splashed  their 
ruined  walls  with  cuts  and  bruises  made  by  fly- 
ing fragments  of  molten  lead.  A  French  engineer 
pointed  out  a  detour  through  the  fields,  and,  after 
some  difficulty,  we  found  ourselves  on  the  main 
road  along  the  river. 

From  here  on  our  progress  was  very  slow.  Every 
few  hundred  yards  a  mine-crater  would  block  us 
and  we  had  to  look  for  a  way  around.  The  tele- 
graph wires  were  down  and  at  times  got  tangled 
in  our  wheels;  the  poles  lay  in  the  road.  But  we 
managed  to  keep  on,  even  getting  by  the  dynamited 
railway-crossing  at  Pont  Maugis.  Across  the  river 
lay  Bazeilles  and  Balan,  and  beyond  them  we  could 
now  plainly  see  our  goal,  Sedan. 

But  just  beyond  Wadelincourt,  as  the  road  en- 
ters the  suburbs  of  the  city,  we  came  to  a  last 
railroad  crossing,  and  here  an  obdurate  French  sen- 
tinel halted  us.  We  showed  him  our  papers,  but  he 
said  that  absolutely  no  one  was  allowed  to  pass  and, 
in  reply  to  a  question,  informed  us,  to  our  great 
surprise,  that  no  troops,  either  French  or  American, 
had  yet  entered  the  city. 

For    further   information   he   referred   us  to   his 

[  192  ] 


THE  ARMISTICE  AND   SEDAN 

captain.  So  we  returned  to  Wadelincourt  and  the 
captain  said  that  we  must  see  his  colonel,  who  was 
over  in  Frenois. 

The  road  over  there,  which  was  little  more  than 
a  field  path,  led  up  and  over  the  heights  that  lie 
to  the  south  of  Sedan,  heights  that  command  a  vast 
panorama.  We  stopped  on  the  summit  to  contem- 
plate this  view,  so  full  of  tragic  memories.  It  is  of 
course  the  city  that  first  fixes  the  attention,  its  mas- 
sive citadel  and  big  public  buildings  standing  out 
prominently  from  the  compact  mass  of  its  houses. 
It  lies  in  a  cup-like  valley,  backed  by  the  first  wooded 
heights  of  the  Ardennes,  and  it  was  in  this  valley 
that  the  French  Emperor  with  his  whole  army  was 
trapped  and  captured  at  the  end  of  the  battle  that 
virtually  closed  the  war  of  1870.  Toward  the  east. 
La  Moncelle  and  Daigny  mark  the  positions  of  the 
French  right  wing,  while  Illy  and  Iges  mark  its 
centre  and  left.  The  Germans  had  crossed  the 
Meuse  at  Donchery  to  the  west,  and  had  occupied 
these  very  heights  of  Frenois,  from  which  their  artil- 
lery commanded  the  city  and  the  rear  of  Napoleon's 
army.  The  French  defended  themselves  heroically. 
But  when  the  Saxons  and  Prussians  effected  a  junc- 

[193] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

tion  at  Illy  and  closed  the  ring  of  iron  round  the 
French,  there  was  no  help  for  it,  and  the  Emperor 
and  his  army,  outgeneralled  and  hopelessly  out- 
numbered, were  obliged  to  surrender.  Napoleon  III 
handed  his  sword  to  the  King  of  Prussia  down  in 
the  Chateau  de  Bellevue  at  the  foot  of  the  hill, 
caught  at  least  like  a  man  at  the  head  of  his  army 
— not  sneaking  like  a  culprit  into  neutral  terri- 
tory ! 

Such,  for  the  French,  are  the  tragic  memories 
that  cluster  round  Sedan.  That  is  why  its  name 
has  been  a  synonym  for  defeat  and  revenge;  that 
is  why  such  importance  was  attached  to  its  capture 
in  this  war. 

Just  how  history  will  eventually  record  this  cap- 
ture, I  cannot  say.  Several  versions  already  exist 
in  the  American  army;  other  versions  are  current 
among  the  French.  The  sentry's  information  that 
no  troops  had  yet  entered  it,  though  it  had  been 
"captured"  about  a  week  before,  was  indeed  sur- 
prising. 

So  it  was  with  some  curiosity  that  I  sought  out 
the  colonel  who,  it  seemed,  alone  had  the  power  to 
allow  us  to  enter  the  city.    I  found  him  in  a  modest 

[194] 


THE  ARMISTICE  AND  SEDAN 

peasant's  house  in  the  httle  village  of  Frenois,  busily 
dictating  orders  in  a  back  room.  He  seemed  sur- 
prised to  see  me  and  at  first,  I  know,  was  going  to 
refuse  my  request,  but  when  I  had  explained  to  him 
our  special  mission,  he  wrote  in  his  own  hand,  down 
in  the  corner  of  my  orders,  an  "authorization  to 
enter  Sedan." 

Armed  with  this,  we  returned  toward  the  city, 
though  by  a  different  road  from  the  one  by  which 
we  had  first  approached  it.  A  sentry  posted  at  the 
railroad  crossing  stopped  us  again  and,  doubting 
the  validity  of  our  pass,  called  his  sergeant,  who, 
in  turn,  called  his  lieutenant  and  he,  recognizing 
his  colonel's  signature,  gave  an  order,  the  road  gates 
opened,  and  we  started  down  a  tree-shaded  avenue 
toward  the  city. 

The  faubourg  was  hung  with  flags — not  flags  such 
as  one  might  ordinarily  see,  but  pathetic  flags  that 
had  lain  hidden  in  cellar  or  garret  for  years,  mingled 
with  others  of  a  home-made  variety,  French  flags, 
stitched  together  clandestinely  in  back  rooms  with 
reds  and  blues  of  varying  intensity,  British  flags 
of  strange  design  and,  most  touching  of  all  to  me, 
American  flags,  presumably  copied  from  photographs, 

[195] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

for  their  starry  fields  were  out  of  all  proportion  and 
their  red  stripes  were  very  often  black. 

Crossing  the  river  and  the  island,  we  entered  the 
Place  de  Turenne  and  drew  up  beside  the  statue 
of  the  great  Marshal  of  France,  a  native  of  the  town. 
The  square  was  quiet  and  almost  deserted.  A  few 
people  came  to  look  at  us  and  our  big  motor  cur- 
iously and  one  elderly  man.  In  well-brushed  but 
antiquated  clothes,  raising  his  watery  eyes  to  mine, 
asked  pathetically:  "When  are  the  French  coming 
in?  We  need  them.  We  have  neither  heat  nor 
food." 

A  long  line  of  abandoned  cannons  were  ranged 
before  the  two  big  buildings  that  had  been,  one  a 
Soldatenheim,  the  other  an  Officers'  Club,  during 
the  German  occupation.  At  one  end  of  the  square 
stood  the  Hotel  de  Ville  and,  adjoining  it,  at  the 
bridge-head,  the  German  generals  had  established 
their  Kommandantur. 

We  went  to  the  City  Hall  to  ask  for  a  room  in 
which  to  open  our  cots,  but  were  told  by  the  Com- 
mlssaire  de  Police  In  person  that  we  should  need 
no  bedding  rolls  that  night.  And  forthwith  we  were 
taken  over  to  an  imposing  house  not  far  away  and 

[  196  ] 


THE  ARMISTICE  AND  SEDAN 

given  two  large  connecting  rooms  on  the  ground 
floor,  facing  a  little  square,  through  which,  we  were 
told,  the  French  troops  would  pass  on  the  morrow. 

For  it  seemed  that  the  French  were  to  enter  the 
city  at  daybreak. 

When  Sedan  was  directly  threatened  by  the  Amer- 
icans, the  Germans  agreed  to  surrender  the  city 
intact  provided  they  were  allowed  to  withdraw  un- 
molested. This  they  had  done  about  a  week  ago 
and,  the  armistice  intervening,  no  other  troops  had 
as  yet  entered  the  city,  which  had  lain  meanwhile 
in  a  sort  of  neutral  territory.  The  people  were  with- 
out coal  and  almost  without  food.  Luckily  we  had 
brought  a  few  canned  things  with  us  and  these  we 
shared  in  the  kitchen  of  the  house  (the  only  room 
that  could  boast  even  a  trace  of  heat)  with  the  woman 
who  kept  it,  she  providing  some  camomile  tea,  whose 
warmth  was  comforting  and  grateful. 

Her  story  was  an  unusual  one.  She  had  come 
up  from  Paris  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  to  see 
her  husband,  who  was  mobilized  near  Sedan,  and 
she  had  been  caught  there  by  the  tide  of  ad- 
vancing Germans.  It  was  found  out  that  she  had 
kept  a  hotel  in  Paris,  so  she  was  ordered  to  organize 

[  197  ] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

and  direct  this  rooming-house  for  officers,  in  return 
for  which  service  she  had  been  treated  with  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  consideration,  though  her  tribula- 
tions had  been  many.  Up  to  the  last  few  weeks 
the  officers  had  seemed  happy  enough.  Then  the 
communiques  had  very  evidently  been  tampered 
with  and  then  they  ceased  altogether.  In  the  hall- 
ways she  heard  loud  words  and  altercations  and 
the  soldiers  saying  to  their  officers,  "We  won't  go 
any  further;  the  war's  over  for  us."  Then  the  com- 
manding general  came  to  take  up  his  residence  in 
her  house,  his  quarters  by  the  bridge-head  being 
untenable,  as  the  mined  bridge  might  be  blown  up 
at  any  moment.  He  sat  most  of  the  time  with  his 
head  in  his  hands,  silent  and  dejected.  Then  came 
the  sound  of  distant  shots  that  steadily  grew  nearer. 
Then  a  day  of  anguish.  Then  calm  again;  and 
presently  the  hated  Germans  packed  up  their  kits 
and  departed,  leaving  the  town  to  its  civilian  pop- 
ulation. 

Before  daybreak,  on  the  morning  following  my 
arrival  in  Sedan,  that  is  on  Sunday,  the  17th  of 
November,  I  was  awakened  by  a  sound  I  had  been 
listening  for  even  in  my  sleep:  the  clatter  of  horses' 
hoofs  on  the  paving-stones,  and,  looking  out,  I  could 

[  198  ] 


THE  ARMISTICE  AND  SEDAN 

see  dim  shapes  moving  along,  the  edaireurs  or  cavalry 
patrols  that  precede  advancing  troops,  the  only 
things  clearly  visible  being  the  sparks  struck  by 
the  horses'  shoes  and  the  matinal  cigarettes  that 
twinkled  in  the  men's  mouths. 

The  advance-guard  came  through  about  a  half- 
hour  later,  and  by  that  time  I  was  standing  with 
the  crowd  in  the  Place  de  Turenne.  For  here  the 
townspeople  had  gathered,  excited,  expectant,  to 
watch  wistfully  for  the  division  that  was  to  follow, 
waiting  to  see  once  more  the  beloved  faces  of  the 
jxyilus,  the  uniforms  of  Frenchmen,  after  so  many 
months  of  having  the  arrogant  Prussian  striding 
through  their  town. 

And  as  we  stood  there  together  I  heard  the  same 
sort  of  stories  that  I  had  heard  before  at  St.  Mihiel: 
the  same  tales  of  mute  suffering,  of  the  haughty, 
overbearing  officers;  of  girls  ordered  to  report  at 
certain  places  at  midnight;  of  underfed  men  obliged 
to  work  overtime  at  hard  labor.  And  wheti  I  asked 
them  where  they  got  their  food  and  clothing,  "Why, 
from  America,"  was  their  reply,  for  they  had  duly 
received  their  share  of  America's  generosity  for  the 
inhabitants  of  the  invaded  regions. 

At  eight  o'clock  an  aviator  came  swooping  over 

[199] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

the  Place  "doing  stunts,"  flying  so  low  that  he  al- 
most touched  the  roof-tops,  then  circling  round 
again  and  attempting  to  calculate  the  distance  even 
closer. 

The  cheers  that  greeted  him  had  scarcely  died 
away  when  we  heard  the  sound  of  music  —  the 
stirring  notes  of  the  *'Sambre  et  Meuse,"  that  march 
of  all  marches  appropriate  to  the  time  and  place, 
and  at  the  far  end  of  the  bridge  could  see  a  solid 
column  of  horizon-blue.  Nearer  and  nearer  came 
the  music,  more  and  more  distinct  the  clear  voices 
of  the  bugles.  A  thrill  went  through  the  crowd. 
Tears  welled  to  their  eyelids  and  their  faded  faces 
were  absolutely  transfigured,  as  they  saw  again, 
after  all  their  years  of  suffering,  their  own  brave 
soldiers,  victors  at  last  after  four  years  of  heroic 
struggles. 

The  band  swung  by.  Behind  it  rode  the  general 
of  the  division — the  gallant  Sixty-First  of  Gouraud's 
famous  Fourth  Army^n  his  field  uniform,  but 
wearing  his  parade  cap  encircled  with  its  double 
bands  of  golden  oak  leaves.  As  his  horse's  hoofs 
left  the  bridge  and  touched  for  the  first  time  the 
paving-stones   of   the  historic  city,  his  hand  went 

[200] 


THE  ARMISTICE  AND  SEDAN 

up  to  his  hepi  but,  instead  of  saluting,  he  lifted 
it  from  his  head  with  a  broad  and  handsome  gesture 
and  swung  it  out  at  full  arm's  length,  holding  it 
thus  as  he  rode  bareheaded  through  the  cheering 
crowd  and  on  through  the  streets  of  the  city  as  far 
as  I  could  see. 

Tramp,  tramp,  tramp,  behind  him,  came  the 
rhythmic  cadence  of  the  marching  feet — the  regi- 
ments passing  in  close  formation.  No  parade  step; 
no  glittering  new  uniforms.  Only  the  faded  coats 
and  the  battered  steel  helmets;  the  marching  kits 
and  the  heavy  packs  and  the  guns  held  high  and 
tipped  with  their  murderous  bayonets.  Regiment 
succeeded  regiment,  each  followed  by  its  field  and 
combat  train  and  by  the  batteries  of  soixante-quinzes, 
an  army  on  the  march,  businesslike  and  grim,  still 
intent  on  the  pursuit  of  a  retiring  foe. 

Finally  the  rattle  of  the  last  field-kitchen  died 
away  and  silence  settled  again  over  the  delivered 
city.  The  people  looked  at  each  other,  exchanged 
a  few  words  and  faded  away  into  their  homes.  A 
young  French  officer  turned  to  me  and  said:  "You 
Americans  have  certainly  added  a  glorious  page 
to  your  history  in  the  taking  of  Sedan." 

[201  ] 


VII 
WITH  THE  ARMY  OF  OCCUPATION 


I 

INTO  LUXEMBOURG 

THERE  seemed  but  one  more  important  thing 
for  me  to  do  in  connection  with  my  work 
for  the  War  Department,  and  that  was  to 
follow  our  Army  of  Occupation  to  the  Rhine. 

But  before  doing  this  I  decided  to  motor  from 
Sedan  back  by  way  of  the  valley  of  the  Meuse  through 
another  region  that  had  been  an  important  American 
sector  during  the  last  days  of  the  war.  At  Dun- 
sur-Meuse  we  stopped  to  say  good-by  to  some  friends 
in  the  Forty-Second,  that  was  just  preparing  to 
move  up  toward  Germany  as  well  as  to  sketch  the 
picturesque  old  fortress-town  that  lay  haK  along 
the  river  and  the  Canal  de  I'Est  and  half  perched 
high  above,  clustered  round  an  ancient  church,  that, 
a  conspicuous  landmark  far  and  wide,  tops  a  steep 
isolated  hill. 

Crowds  of  prisoners  returning  from  Germany 
were  passing   through   the   town:    Russians,   Eng- 

[205] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

lish,  Italians,  French.  Some  were  trudging  pain- 
fully along,  tired,  weak,  and  hungry;  others  had 
been  picked  up  by  our  trucks  and  were  being  whirled 
they  knew  not  whither,  but  little  did  it  seem  to  matter 
to  them  so  long  as  they  were  headed  toward  France. 
They  were  dressed  for  the  most  part  in  tatters — 
some  in  the  uniforms  that  they  had  worn  when  cap- 
tured; others  in  the  cast-off  dress  clothes  of  the  Ger- 
man army  that  had  been  discarded  at  the  beginning 
of  the  war.  All  had  their  stories  written  on  their 
faces.  The  fresh  and  ruddy-cheeked  men  had  in- 
variably been  captured  recently;  the  wan  and  ema- 
ciated faces,  some  of  them  quite  heart-breaking  to 
look  at,  belonged  to  men  who  had  been  suffering 
long  years  of  captivity.  The  British,'  I  thought, 
looked  worst  of  all. 

From  Dun  to  Verdun  we  passed  again  through 
that  terrifying  country  that  had  been  ravaged  and 
desolated  by  four  years  of  constant  combats. 
Brieulles,  Brabant,  Samogneux,  Regneville,  Vach- 
erauville — so  many  ruins.  Bras  and  Charny  wiped 
from  the  map.  At  the  last-named  places  we  en- 
tered the  ring  of  fortresses  that  surround  Verdun — 
the  famous  circle  that  the  Germans  penetrated  but 

[206] 


3 


f- 


INTO  LUXEMBOURG 

never  broke,  for  its  watchword  was  the  dejfiant  '*They 
shall  not  pass." 

The  terrible  Cotes  du  Poivre  and  de  Froide  Terre; 
the  blasted  valley,  the  dead  and  withered  hillsides 
that  had  reverted  to  lunar  solitudes;  the  dugouts, 
muddy,  soaked  and  beaten  by  the  elements;  the 
camouflaged  emplacements  for  the  heavy  guns;  the 
trenches  winding  interminable,  like  mole  tracks, 
up  and  down  and  over  the  tops  of  the  hills;  a  few 
scattered  stumps  of  trees  standing  in  acres  and  acres 
of  wire  entanglements — these  composed  the  sinister 
landscapes  that  finally  terminated  at  Verdun,  lying 
smashed  but  undaunted,  behind  its  ring  of  hills. 

Along  the  way  we  had  seen  but  few  soldiers.  But 
Verdun  itself  was  alive  with  poilus  and  Yanks,  and 
we  found  to  our  great  surprise,  quartered  in  the 
famous  citadel,  our  own  department  of  G.  H.  Q., 
G  2-D.  So  for  a  day  or  two  we  remained  in  the 
city,  sketching  its  ruined  streets,  its  cathedral  and 
the  battered  Bishop's  Palace  that  adjoins  it,  sleep- 
ing and  taking  our  meals  in  the  citadel,  a  veritable 
underground  city,  capable  of  housing  two  divisions 
in  its  mess-halls,  kitchens,  dormitories,  assembly 
rooms,  and  cinemas. 

[207] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

When  we  had  gathered  as  much  Information  as 
we  could  as  to  the  future  movements  of  our  army, 
we  returned  to  Neufchateau  to  get  ready  for  our 
long  trek  to  the  Rhine. 

We  started  on  that  memorable  journey  on  No- 
vember 24th,  proceeding  by  way  of  Toul  and  Pont- 
a-Mousson,  at  which  place  we  stopped  for  a  time 
to  sketch  the  town  and  Its  defenses  that  we  had 
never  been  able  to  see  before.  Then  we  crossed 
the  Moselle  by  the  temporary  wooden  bridge  that 
fills  the  gap  made  by  dynamiting  the  old  stone  struc- 
ture, whose  parapets  were  still  strongly  defended 
by  the  gabions  and  wattled  revetments  placed  there 
at  the  beginning  of  the  war. 

Turning  northward  we  proceeded  through  what 
had  always  been  a  No  Man's  Land,  dangerous  and 
dIflBcult  of  access.  Now  Its  undefended  trenches, 
its  deserted  roads  with  their  elaborate  camouflage 
already  tumbling  down,  Its  abandoned  fields  of  wire 
and  trous  de  hup  plainly  told  the  story  that  the  war 
was  at  an  end. 

At  Vlttonville  all  the  signs  became  German  and 
just  beyond  It  we  crossed  the  border  Into  the  old 
province  of  Lorraine  that  had  been  wrested  from 
France  in  1870. 

[208] 


INTO  LUXEMBOURG 

At  Jouy- aux -Arches  we  had  a  puncture  and 
stopped  the  car  to  repair  It  under  the  tall  arches 
of  the  Roman  aqueduct  that  Drusus  built  to  supply 
Divodurum  (Metz)  with  water. 

It  was  very  cold  and  I  was  stamping  my  feet  on 
the  stone  pavement  to  warm  them,  when  a  door 
opened  behind  me  and  I  heard  a  voice  say  "Come 
in  and  get  warm."  Turning  my  head,  I  perceived 
a  toothless  old  woman,  bent  and  rheumatic,  bowing 
and  smiling  invitingly.  I  went  in  and  she  placed 
me  a  chair  by  the  stove,  from  whose  oven  she  ex- 
tracted a  hot  brick  which  she  wrapped  in  some  sack- 
ing and  put  under  my  feet. 

"Ah,  monsieur,"  she  said,  "how  happy  I  am  to 
see  you !  How  much  we  owe  to  you  Americans ! 
For  nearly  fifty  years  we  French  of  Lorraine  have 
groaned  under  the  German  yoke.  I  was  a  girl  when 
we  were  separated  from  our  own  country,  and  my 
husband  and  I,  all  our  lives,  have  prayed  to  be  de- 
livered. He  always  said,  *The  day  will  come,'  and 
he  believed  it.  But  alas,  he  passed  away  last  year 
just  before  his  prayers  were  answered — died  of  priva- 
tions. Could  he  but  have  lived  to  see  this  day  !  He 
would  have  died  so  happy."  And  she  went  on  to 
tell  me  of  their  suffering  so  near  the  front  and  to 

[209] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

show  me  her  single  bit  of  black  bread,  hard  as  a 
bullet  and  dark  in  color  as  a  chocolate  cake,  that 
nevertheless  had  been  parsimoniously  measured  out 
and  rationed  to  each  inhabitant. 

The  tall  arches  of  the  old  Roman  aqueduct  that 
towered  above  her  humble  cottage  were  decked 
with  flags  and  bunting,  and  at  the  entrance  to  each 
village,  as  we  proceeded,  floral  arches  had  been 
erected,  bearing  messages  of  welcome:  "Honor  to 
the  AUied  Armies,"  "Hail  to  our  Victorious  Troops," 
"Vive  la  France  !    Vive  I'Amerique  !" 

At  the  entrance  to  the  suburbs  of  Metz  stood  a 
larger  and  more  pretentious  arch,  and  the  streets 
of  the  faubourg  were  thickly  studded  with  flags, 
many  of  them  of  that  same  home-made  variety 
that  I  have  described  at  Sedan. 

We  lunched  in  a  hotel  that  fronts  on  a  Place  where 
some  huge  German  Emperor  lay  prone  upon  the 
ground,  crumpled  under  the  weight  of  his  great 
bronze  horse,  hauled  from  the  pedestal  that  stood 
empty  beside  him.  The  main  square  of  the  city, 
in  front  of  the  majestic  Cathedral,  was  packed  with 
throbbing  French  army  motors  and  filled  with  of- 
ficers in  horizon-blue,  one  of  whom  pointed  out  to 

[  210  ] 


INTO  LUXEMBOURG 

me  a  statue  of  the  Kaiser,  standing  in  a  niche  on 
a  buttress.  WiUiam  II,  in  his  presumption,  had 
caused  it  to  be  erected  in  place  of  one  of  the  prophet 
Daniel  and  it  now  wore  manacles,  and  was  dec- 
orated with  the  inscription,  "Sic  Transit  Gloria 
Mundi." 

Our  next  objective  was  Thionville,  a  considerable 
town,  surrounded  by  foundries  and  situated  in  the 
very  heart  of  the  great  Lorraine  iron-mines.  We 
had  some  difficulty  in  finding  the  road  to  it  until 
we  remembered  that  its  German  name  was  Dieden- 
hofen !  On  this,  the  first  Sunday  of  its  occupation, 
its  streets  were  gay  with  bunting  and  packed  from 
curb  to  curb  with  French  soldiers,  laughing,  joking, 
talking,  and  walking  arm  in  arm  with  the  comely 
girls  of  Lorraine,  who  had  donned  for  the  occasion 
their  brightest  and  prettiest  national  costumes. 

The  roads  outside  the  city  were  teeming  with, 
American  divisions  on  the  move,  coming  up  from 
the  Bassin  de  Briey  and  from  Longwy  to  take  up 
their  positions  along  the  Luxembourg  frontier.  Our 
headquarters  were  then  in  Luxembourg  itself  and 
to  this  city  we  now  proceeded. 

When  we  entered  the  animated   capital  of  the 

[2111 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

Grand  Duchy  we  found  its  streets  packed  with  a 
Sunday  throng — a  crowd  so  dense  that  it  seemed 
as  if  the  entire  population  of  the  city  had  poured 
itself  into  the  one  broad  main  street.  There  was  a 
liberal  sprinkling  of  khaki  in  the  crowd  but  most 
of  our  troops  were  quartered  outside  of  the  city  in 
towns  scattered  along  the  roads  that  led  toward 
the  German  frontier.  Though  the  national  flag 
was  everywhere  in  evidence  and  though  most  of 
the  shop-windows  displayed  colored  prints  and  post- 
cards of  the  faces  of  all  the  Allied  rulers  or  mili- 
tary commanders,  nowhere  could  I  discover  a  por- 
trait of  the  grand  duchess. 

Neither  the  city  nor  its  people,  to  the  casual  ob- 
server, showed  any  trace  of  damage  or  suffering. 
They  seemed  in  fact  to  have  benefited  by  some  special 
dispensation,  the  city  having  been  reserved,  I  fancy, 
.as  a  permanent  sort  of  rest  area  for  the  German 
officers.  We  supped  that  night  in  the  white-and- 
gold  dining-room  of  the  principal  hotel.  Civilians, 
handsomely  dressed  ladies,  well-trained  young  waiters 
serving  excellent  though  expensive  food,  were  unusual 
and  surprising  sights.  Though  there  were  many 
American  officers  in  the  room,  it  was  really  a  "peace- 
time dinner." 

[212] 


INTO  LUXEMBOURG 

Afterward  we  went  to  the  Casino  or  club.  All 
Luxembourg  was  there,  all  Luxembourg  in  the  demo- 
cratic sense.  The  cafe  was  packed;  up-stairs  there 
was  music  and  dancing.  I  watched  the  crowd  with 
the  greatest  interest,  for  the  German  physiognomy 
was  everywhere  apparent  and  the  whole  atmosphere 
of  the  place  was  distinctly  "Boche,"  resembling  in 
every  particular  some  German  Verein  in  East  Fifty- 
Ninth  Street.  Yet  by  word  and  action  the  people 
were  receiving  us  with  open  arms,  happy,  they  said, 
to  be  freed  from  German  rule  and  assuring  us  re- 
peatedly that  no  Prussian  officer  had  ever  been  ad- 
mitted within  the  precincts  of  this  club.  Many  of 
the  men  were  wearing  bits  of  red  ribbon  in  their 
buttonholes  to  show  their  republican  beliefs,  and 
when  I  questioned  them  they  all  professed  strong 
pro-French  sympathies. 

For  several  days  we  lingered  about  the  city  which 
is  exceptionally  picturesque,  especially  those  parts  of 
it  called  the  Grund  and  the  Pfaffenthal,  that  lie  in 
a  profound  valley  worn  by  the  Alzette  as  it  makes 
its  way  through  the  hills  that  are  crowned  by  the 
massive  ramparts  of  the  Oberstadt  or  old  town. 

We  also  visited  the  areas  about  the  city  that  were 
occupied  by  the  American  troops,  which  had,   by 

[  213  ] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

now,  moved  up  and  were  taking  their  positions  along 
the  Sure  and  Moselle  from  Diekirch  to  Sierck,  there  to 
await  the  order  to  cross  the  frontier  into  Germany. 

From  Diekirch  eastward  down  the  valley  of  the 
Sure  we  found  the  Marines  quartered  in  all  the 
villages  and  their  sentries,  doubled,  patrolling  the 
river  bank,  keeping  an  ever-watchful  eye  upon  the  op- 
posite shore,  where  the  German  sentinels  were  plainly 
visible.  Here  and  there  we  passed  picturesque  little 
groups,  assembled  round  camp-fires,  trying  to  keep 
themselves  warm,  for  the  air  was  wet  and  cold.  And 
I  remember  being  struck  by  the  sight  of  an  oflBcer's 
tunic  hanging  over  a  chair  by  a  window  with  the 
second  gold  chevron  newly  sewed  on,  the  right  to 
wear  it  having  just  been  attained  by  the  Second 
Division. 

Around  Echternach  we  found  our  friends  of  the 
Thirty-Second  with  one  of  their  P.  C.'s  established 
in  the  spacious  courtyard  of  the  old  Benedictine 
Abbey  that  is  the  chief  architectural  adornment  of 
the  town.  The  stone  bridge  across  the  Sure  was 
guarded  by  a  strong  detachment  surrounded  by  a 
crowd  of  admiring  youngsters. 

Following  down  the  river  a  little  farther,  we  reached 

[214] 


INTO  LUXEMBOURG 

Wasserbilllg,  where  the  Sure  joins  the  Moselle  to 
form  the  greater  stream  whose  valley  was  to  be  our 
main  road  to  Coblenz  and  the  Rhine.  Large  black 
letters  on  a  sign-board,  "Trier  13  km.,"  tempted  us 
sorely  to  cross  the  bridge  and  go  on  into  Germany, 
but  the  bridge  guards  would  never  have  allowed 
us  to  pass  and  we  could  still  see  German  sentinels 
patrolling  the  opposite  bank. 

Ascending  the  Moselle  we  found  the  First  Divi- 
sion billeted  in  the  villages  all  the  way  to  Remick. 
Their  guard  patrols  were  drilling  on  the  little  tongues 
of  land  spotted  along  the  river;  their  artillery  was 
parked  in  the  fields;  their  horses  were  being  watered 
and  cared  for.  The  peasants  looked  on  apathetically, 
I  thought,  and  seemed  even  a  bit  hostile,  for,  I  be- 
lieve, they  and  the  clergy  who  dominate  them  still 
adhered  at  that  time  to  the  grand  duchess's  party. 

By  the  end  of  November  our  troops  were  all  in 
position,  their  transport  had  moved  up  and  every- 
thing was  in  readiness  for  their  advance  into  Ger- 
many. All  that  was  lacking  was  the  order  from  the 
High  Command  for  the  Allied  Armies  of  Occupa- 
tion to  move  forward  in  unison  across  the  German 
border. 

[215] 


II 
TO  THE  RHINE  AND  BEYOND 

THAT  order  finally  came  and  a  few  days  later 
we  crossed  the  Sure  at  Wasserbillig,  where 
the  sign-post  had  tempted  us  before,  and 
in  a  short  half-hour  were  motoring  through  the 
streets  of  Treves,  having  our  first  glimpse  of  Ger- 
many in  war-time. 

The  flags  and  arches  that  had  greeted  the  retiring 
German  army  had  entirely  disappeared.  All  looked 
strangely  normal  and  peaceful.  We  were  shown  to 
good  rooms,  comfortably  heated,  at  the  Porta  Nigra 
Hotel.  Our  windows  overlooked  the  great  black 
arch  begun  by  Caesar  in  the  first  century,  but  never 
completed — one  of  the  most  remarkable  Roman  re- 
mains north  of  the  Alps,  for  Augusta  Trevirorum 
was  so  important  a  colony  that  the  Emperors  them- 
selves at  times  came  to  live  in  it,  a  fact  to  which 
the  ruins  of  their  palaces  and  baths  still  testify. 

[216] 


TO  THE  RHINE  AND  BEYOND 

During  the  days  that  followed  the  Great  War, 
Treves  was  again  to  take  an  important  place  in  his- 
tory and  receive  hosts  of  distinction.  First  our  own 
American  advance  G.  H.  Q.  moved  up  to  it  and 
used  it  as  its  headquarters.  Then  Foch  himself 
came  here  to  meet  the  German  delegates  and  precise 
and  affirm  the  exact  terms  and  prolongations  of  the 
armistice,  so  that  the  city  became  the  centre  of  the 
network  that  controlled  the  Allied  Armies  of  Occu- 
pation. 

As  I  have  said,  it  had  remained  quite  normal. 
After  supper,  a  simple  and  breadless  meal,  I  took 
a  walk  about  the  city.  Its  shops  were  brightly  lighted 
and  filled  with  attractive  wares.  The  people  looked 
neatly  dressed  though  their  shoes  were  not  of  leather. 
Though  but  a  few  miles  from  the  border,  all  seemed 
so  tranquil,  so  undisturbed  that  my  gorge  rose  with- 
in me  as  I  walked  down  street  after  street,  where 
handsome  houses  stood  intact,  their  windows  fresh- 
ly curtained,  their  door-steps  neatly  swept,  and  I 
thought  of  all  the  devastation  that  I  had  seen,  of 
the  sufferings  that  I  had  witnessed,  of  the  homes 
systematically  robbed  and  pillaged,  and  in  my  mind 
I  contrasted  the  forlorn  refugees  wandering  they 

[217] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

knew  not  whither  with  these  smug  middle-class 
people  who  even  now  were  strumming  their  pianos 
and  singing  in  their  comfortable  homes. 

We  only  spent  one  night  in  Treves,  for  we  were 
anxious  to  reach  Coblenz  next  evening,  it  being  the 
goal  of  our  ambition,  the  city  whose  name  to  the 
Americans  spelt  "victory,"  its  occupation  bringing 
our  troops  into  the  very  heart  of  the  enemy's  coun- 
try. 

As  far  as  Wittlich  we  followed  a  broad  highway 
that  had  been  very  badly  cut  up  by  the  iron-tired 
trucks  of  the  retiring  German  army.  The  inhabi- 
tants stood  in  their  doorways,  silent,  furtively  watch- 
ing us  as  we  passed.  The  children,  on  the  contrary, 
dashed  out  from  doors  and  alley-ways,  and,  at  the 
risk  of  their  lives,  boisterously  greeted  the  honk- 
honk  of  our  horn. 

Every  little  while  we  would  overtake  one  of  our 
marching  columns — sometimes  a  battalion  of  in- 
fantry, swinging  along  in  columns  of  four,  with  only 
their  light  equipment  upon  their  backs  and  looking 
their  very  best  in  brand-new  uniforms;  sometimes 
a  battery  of  field-artillery  with  its  glistening  guns 
no  longer  camouflaged,  its  animals  well-groomed,  its 

[218] 


TO  THE  RHINE  AND  BEYOND 

standards,  uncased,  flapping  gayly  in  the  breeze; 
sometimes  a  quartermaster's  outfit  with  its  mule- 
drawn  wagons  covered,  hke  the  prairie-schooners 
of  other  days,  with  new  canvas  tops  and  followed 
by  a  jangling  array  of  freshly  painted  water-tanks 
and  field-kitchens.  For  the  entire  equipment  of 
our  Army  of  Occupation  had  been  renewed  through- 
out, and  was  now  well  calculated  to  impress  the 
people  of  the  occupied  region. 

For  hours  we  wriggled  past  these  moving  columns, 
noting,  on  the  men's  left  shoulders,  either  the  bright 
red  arrow  of  the  Thirty-Second  or  the  T.  O.  of  the 
Ninetieth.  Posters  marked  with  the  same  em- 
blems, pasted  on  trees  and  walls,  indicated  the  road 
to  follow  and  guided  us  finally  to  Alf ,  where  we  found 
ourselves  upon  the  banks  of  the  Moselle  again. 

From  here  on  the  road  skirted  the  river,  which, 
in  its  many  windings,  had  greatly  widened.  The 
hills  on  either  hand  rose  higher  and  more  majestic, 
their  purple  flanks  ribbed  and  striped  with  gray 
stone  walls  that  shore  up  the  terraces  whereon  grow 
the  Graachers,  the  Piesporters,  and  the  other  wines 
for  which  the  valley  is  famous.  The  villages  too 
grew  older  and  more  picturesque  as  we  descended 

[219] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

the  river.  In  Bremm  a  painter  could  linger  for 
weeks;  Beilstein  has  been  pictured  on  canvas  and 
in  engravings  for  centuries;  while,  as  a  climax  to 
these  scenes  of  more  intimate  charm,  Cochem's 
fantastic  outline  suddenly  appeared  silhouetting  the 
battlements  and  towers  of  its  ancient  Schloss  against 
the  sky. 

Down  both  banks  of  the  river  our  troops  were 
pouring,  diminutive,  interminable  caravans,  strange- 
ly dwarfed  by  the  majesty  of  their  surroundings. 
At  a  point  somewhat  below  Cochem  we  were  obliged 
to  take  our  motor  across  the  river  on  a  ferry,  a  slow 
but  amusing  operation  that  delayed  us  until  four 
o'clock.  We  now  found  ourselves  in  the  full  tide 
of  the  First  Division,  the  unit  that  was  advancing 
in  the  lead  and  was  to  be  the  first  to  enter  Coblenz. 
For  some  distance  beyond  Treis  we  continued  to 
pass  its  regiments,  marching  stolidly  along,  weary, 
though  they  would  not  admit  it,  plodding  doggedly 
on  toward  the  ultimate  goal. 

When  we  had  at  last  passed  the  foremost  battalion 
with  its  major  marching  at  its  head,  the  road  opened 
clear  before  us,  and  for  the  last  twenty  kilometres 
or  so  we  speeded  up  with  nothing  at  all  to  stop  us. 

[220] 


TO  THE  RHINE  AND  BEYOND 

At  the  entrance  to  the  city  we  were  halted  by 
two  American  sentries  who  carefully  examined  our 
papers;  a  moment  later  we  were  again  stopped  by 
a  mounted  captain,  who  politely  informed  us  that 
no  one  was  allowed  to  enter  the  city  but  G  2-D,  but 
that,  luckily,  meant  us.  So,  without  any  further 
trouble,  we  now  found  ourselves  gliding  down  the 
quiet  streets  of  Coblenz.  Only  one  American  de- 
tachment had  as  yet  entered  the  city — a  battalion 
that  had  been  sent  in  ahead  to  guard  the  stores, 
motor-trucks,  and  rolling  stock  that  were  being 
turned  over  by  the  Germans  according  to  the  terms 
of  the  armistice. 

We  were  assigned  to  rooms  in  the  Coblenzerhof, 
a  handsome  new  hotel  that  had  been  finished  just 
before  the  war,  and  that  our  army  had  taken  over 
as  its  permanent  headquarters.  There  were  as  yet, 
however,  only  a  dozen  officers  in  it — members  of  a 
special  mission,  headed  by  Colonel  Ray,  that  was 
arranging  matters  connected  with  the  occupation. 

The  Coblenzerhof  stands  on  the  Rhine  Quay  di- 
rectly facing  the  Bridge  of  Boats.  My  room  was 
on  the  third  floor  and  its  windows  and  balcony  com- 
manded an  extensive  view  up  and  down  the  river. 

[221] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

Opposite,  rose  the  precipitous  heights  of  Ehren- 
breitstein,  crowned  with  its  grim  old  fortress.  Up 
the  river  the  gardens  of  the  Kaiserin  Augusta  An- 
lagen  extended  for  nearly  a  mile,  while  toward  the 
north,  at  the  confluence  of  the  Moselle  and  the  Rhine, 
on  a  tongue  of  land,  quite  sacred  to  the  Teuton  heart, 
called  the  Deutsches  Eck,  I  could  just  see,  half  hidden 
by  the  houses  of  the  quay,  the  colossal  Denkmal  or 
monument  erected  to  the  memory  of  the  first  German 
Emperor,  builder  of  the  empire,  founder  of  the  proud 
dynasty  of  the  HohenzoUerns,  William  I,  Prince  of 
Prussia,  who  here  in  Coblenz,  one  of  his  favored 
Residenzstadts,  matured  the  plans  for  his  new  Prus- 
sian army. 

And  now  the  mighty  strength  of  that  formidable 
army  and  of  that  empire  that  was  builded  upon 
the  theory  that  might  makes  right  was  gone  and 
broken  forever,  and  on  the  quay  below  me  I  saw 
sentries  in  khaki  from  far-away  America  guarding 
the  bridge-head  over  the  Rhine  in  the  name  of 
liberty,  justice,  and  humanity ! 

As  I  left  my  room  with  these  thoughts  in  my  mind 
I  saw,  in  the  dimly  lighted  hall,  an  officer  coming 
toward  me,  a  slender,  youthful  figure  that  I  took 

[222] 


TO  THE  RHINE  AND  BEYOND 

naturally  for  that  of  an  American.  But  a  character- 
istic click  of  the  heels  and  the  automatic  salute  be- 
trayed at  once  his  nationality,  and  I  realized  that 
I  had  passed  a  German.  When  I  went  into  the  din- 
ing-room I  found  quite  a  group  of  them,  officers 
who  had  been  left  behind  to  arrange  matters  with 
our  mission. 

I  learned  that  evening  that  the  First  Division 
was  to  enter  Coblenz  at  about  noon  on  the  morrow. 

Promptly  on  the  hour  the  heads  of  the  columns 
appeared  at  the  upper  ends  of  the  various  main 
thoroughfares  and  silently  but  steadily  poured  down 
into  the  very  heart  of  the  city.  Most  of  the  inhabi- 
tants remained  indoors  with  their  windows  tightly 
closed  and  the  few  that  were  walking  in  the  streets 
went  indifferently  along  without  as  much  as  turn- 
ing their  heads  to  look  at  the  marching  regiments, 
acting,  in  fact,  as  if  American  troops  moving  through 
their  town  were  an  every-day  occurrence. 

The  main  columns  halted  and  formed  by  bat- 
talions in  two  squares  that  open  in  front  of  the 
Schloss  or  Royal  Palace,  a  favorite  residence  of  the 
Empress  Augusta  until  her  death.  Here,  as  well 
as  in  other  squares  about  the  city,  the  soldiers  stacked 

[  223  ] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

their  arms,  unslung  their  packs,  and  settled  down 
to  a  much-needed  rest. 

The  field-kitchens  began  to  smoke  and  the  smell 
of  "slum"  and  hot  coffee  filled  the  air.  What  the 
marching  troops — the  entrance  of  an  Army  of  Oc- 
cupation into  their  city — had  failed  to  do,  these 
culinary  odors  accomplished.  First  the  children, 
then  the  housewives,  drawn  by  these  odors  as  if 
by  irresistible  magnets,  began  to  issue  from  the 
houses,  gathering  furtively  at  first,  then  more  and 
more  boldly,  around  the  steaming  wagons.  Sen- 
tries with  fixed  bayonets  good-humoredly  but  firmly 
tried  to  keep  them  back,  calling  out  in  stentorian 
voices,  "Get  back  there.  Keep  off,"  and  the  like. 
The  soldiers  lined  up  with  their  mess-kits,  then, 
when  these  were  filled,  went  off  to  sit  in  the  grass 
or  along  the  stone  copings,  to  eat  their  food,  sur- 
rounded by  envious  crowds,  gazing  longingly  at  the 
savory  stew,  the  steaming  hot  coffee,  and  the  thick 
slices  of  white  bread  that  the  men  were  only  too 
inclined  to  share  with  the  children. 

Though  tinged  with  a  distinct  touch  of  humor, 
the  picture  was  in  the  main  a  pathetic  one,  telling 
its  tale  of  months  of  privation. 

[224] 


TO  THE  RHINE  AND  BEYOND 

On  the  day  following  the  entrance  of  the  army 
into  Coblenz  we  made  a  trip  up  and  down  the  Rhine 
as  far  as  the  American  sector  extended,  that  is,  thirty 
kilometres  northward  to  Sinzig  and  thirty  kilometres 
southward  to  St.  Goar.  Our  sentinels,  doubled,  as 
we  had  seen  them  on  the  Sure  and  Moselle  along  the 
Luxembourg  frontier,  were  now  patrolling  the  left 
bank  of  the  Rhine,  across  which  as  yet  no  troops 
had  moved. 

The  majestic  river,  scene  of  so  much  history,  so 
many  legends  dear  to  the  Teuton  heart,  seemed 
saddened  in  the  cold  gray  light  of  mid-December. 
From  crag  and  hilltop  its  storied  castles  looked 
down:  Schloss  Hammerstein,  Schloss  Rheineck, 
seat  of  the  von  Bethmann-Hollwegs;  the  Stolzen- 
fels,  commanding  its  vast  panorama  up  and  down 
the  ancient  waterway;  the  Marburg,  most  imposing 
of  all  the  Rhenish  strongholds,  poking  its  towers 
and  battlements  into  the  very  clouds  themselves; 
the  "Hostile  Brothers,"  the  "Cat  and  Mouse,"  and 
Rheinfels  grouping  themselves  about  St.  Goar  in 
one  of  the  most  romantic  stretches  of  the  river,  and 
the  Lorelei  itself,  centre  of  song  and  legend,  rising 
gray  and  grim  out  of  the  silent  river. 

[  225  ] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

But  now  no  pleasure-parties,  no  tourist  caravans 
were  visiting  these  historic  scenes.  Instead,  the 
towns  and  villages  were  filled  with  khaki,  with  sol- 
diers that  had  poured  down  through  the  rugged 
hills  of  the  Eifel  from  Daun  and  Priim,  and  through 
the  valley  of  the  Moselle  to  add  a  chapter  to  the 
history  of  the  Rhineland  that  never  will  be  dear 
to  the  hearts  of  future  Teuton  generations. 

I  witnessed  the  crowning  event  of  that  chapter 
of  history  next  morning,  the  morning  of  the  13th 
of  December. 

Just  before  dawn  I  heard  a  sound  I  had  been 
listening  for:  the  sound  of  shuffling  feet  on  the 
wooden  Bridge  of  Boats  below  my  window,  and, 
looking  out,  could  see,  in  the  first  dim  light  of  day, 
a  long  yellowish  serpent  crawling  slowly  across  the 
bridge.  Longer  and  longer  this  serpent  grew,  until 
its  head  had  disappeared  under  the  railroad  viaduct 
on  the  opposite  bank  of  the  river.  Yet  its  sinuous 
body,  bristling  with  guns  and  plaited  like  chain 
mail  with  steel  helmets,  kept  ever  wriggling  and 
writhing  across  the  river.  Tramp,  tramp,  tramp, 
went  its  thousands  of  marching  feet — but  no  other 
sound  broke  the  stillness  of  that  early  morning. 

[226] 


tR 

i.--^ 


First  Americans  Crossing  the  Rhine 

The  first  American  troops  crossed  the  Rhine  just  after  daybreak  on  the  Bridge  of  fioats 

at  Coblenz 


TO  THE  RHINE  AND  BEYOND 

This  was  but  the  beginning — the  advance-guard — 
of  what  went  on  for  days  as  our  army  crossed  the 
Rhine  to  occupy  the  bridge-head  beyond. 

Toward  nine  o'clock  I  saw  the  first  American 
flag  go  over.  The  morning  was  gray  and  misty  with 
a  drizzhng  rain.  The  heights  of  Ehrenbreitstein 
were  wrapped  in  mystery.  The  river  flowed  sullen 
and  leaden,  and  the  khaki-clad  columns  mingled 
with  this  general  grayness.  Then,  against  all  this 
monotony  of  tone,  there  appeared  a  radiant  object — 
a  brilliant  spot  of  red,  white,  and  blue,  edged  with 
its  golden  fringes,  the  silken  regimental  colors  of 
the  infantry,  *'01d  Glory"  triumphant,  carrying  its 
message  of  humanity  and  justice  to  the  peoples 
beyond  the  Rhine.  ; 

Could  only  all  those  who  had  made  sacrifices  at 
home,  all  those  who  had  come  over  to  France  to 
help  make  this  victory  possible,  all  those  who  had 
given  their  lives  even  for  the  cause,  have  lived  to 
see  this  moment,  they  would  not  have  considered 
that  they  had  lived  or  died  in  vain. 

For  hours  I  watched  the  columns  moving  on  over 
the  Schiffbriicke;  it  seemed  as  if  I  could  never  see 
enough  of  them.     The  townspeople  too  had  now 

[227] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

come  out  and  were  standing  along  the  curbstones 
frankly  admiring  the  splendid  appearance  and  equip- 
ment of  our  men.  *'How  young  they  look;  how 
handsome!"  I  frequently  heard  about  me.  How 
strong  too — that  army  that  their  leaders  had  as- 
sured them  would  never  cross  the  seas,  and,  even 
if  it  did  come,  would  only  be  fitted  for  labor  and 
not  for  years  be  ready  for  combat. 

Yet  upon  its  flags  could  now  be  inscribed  the 
names  of  many  a  glorious  victory:  Cantigny,  Bel- 
leau,  Chateau-Thierry,  St.  Mihiel,  and  the  fierce 
battles  in  the  Argonne. 

These  were  the  flags  that  now  were  crossing  the 
Rhine.  My  last  journey  took  me  over  with  them, 
through  the  crowded  roads,  to  sketch  the  towns 
across  the  river  in  which  our  men  were  to  be  billeted 
in  quaint  half-timbered  houses  like  those  in  old  Ger- 
man woodcuts,  and  especially  to  see  Montabaur,  a 
highly  picturesque  town  in  the  centre  of  the  bridge- 
head that  the  First  Division  was  using  as  its  head- 
quarters. When  this  work  was  finished  I  returned 
to  Coblenz,  ready  to  go  back  to  Neuf chateau. 

But  before  I  left  I  saw  one  final  picture — a  pic- 
ture that  will  live  in  my  memory  as  long  as  I  live. 

[228] 


TO  THE  RHINE  AND  BEYOND 

I  had  changed  hotels  and  was  now  at  the  Monopol 
that  fronts  on  one  of  the  city's  most  important 
squares.  Breakfast  was  served  in  a  room  that  faces 
the  street,  and  is  on  a  level  with  it,  separated  from 
it  by  only  a  sheet  of  glass  hung  with  flimsy  muslin 
curtains.  A  group  of  German  officers  occupied  the 
table  next  to  us — a  different  group  than  I  had  seen 
before — several  junior  officers  and  a  major,  the  latter 
a  typical  rigid  martinet  of  the  type  that  we  associ- 
ate, and  rightly,  with  the  worst  of  Prussian  mili- 
tarism. 

We  were  about  to  begin  our  meal  when  an  in- 
fantry column  came  down  the  street  and  just  as 
it  reached  the  window  at  which  we  sat  the  band 
at  its  head  struck  up  a  stirring  and  triumphant  S<ousa 
march.  One  of  the  younger  German  officers  im- 
pulsively jumped  up  and,  with  boyish  curiosity, 
held  back  the  muslin  curtain  the  better  to  see  the 
American  troops.  Their  colonel  rode  by  at  the  head 
of  his  regiment,  and  then  came  the  Stars-and-Stripes 
again,  uncased,  flaunting  its  bright  folds  in  the  fresh 
morning  breeze. 

I  watched  the  Prussian  major's  face  and  it  well 
repaid  my  scrutiny.    From  a  deadly  pallor  it  turned 

[229] 


THE  AMERICAN  FRONT 

pink,  and  then,  as  the  blood  mounted  to  it,  crimson, 
until  I  thought  he  would  be  seized  with  a  stroke  of 
apoplexy.  Every  muscle  was  tense  and  rigid,  but 
he  never  moved,  remaining  still  and  silent,  with 
folded  arms,  watching.  My  cup  of  happiness  was 
full.  I  had  seen  a  typical  Prussian  oflBcer  humiliated 
in  the  heart  of  his  own  country. 


[230] 


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Series  9482 


I 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA      000  294  930    3 


3  1205  00435  7610 


-:■'  ^':^■■,■.■(^f';^  '."i 


